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Land-use conversions in the agro-pastoral ecotone in 1980–1990 (A,B), 1990–2000 (C,D), and 2000–2015 (E,F).
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Being subject to climate change and human intervention, the land-use pattern in the agro-pastoral ecotone of Northern China has undergone complex changes over the past few decades, which may jeopardize the provision of ecosystem services. Thus, for sustainable land management, ecosystem services should be evaluated and monitored. In this study, bas...
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This symposium was convened to share insights on how understanding culture-nature interlinkages on many landscapes and waterscapes can shape more effective and sustainable conservation. Papers in the Proceedings are based on presentations at the symposium. The symposium Program and Proceedings are available at https://www.usicomos.org/symposium-201...
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... This resulted in the current mosaic landscape belt, composed of interspersed grasslands, croplands, and forestlands, which is referred to as the agro-pastoral ecotone [14,19]. The agro-pastoral ecotone is extremely susceptible to both natural factors and human disturbance [6,20], and its response to natural factor change and human interference is more obvious [5,21]. Therefore, conducting appropriate research projects in this region is essential. ...
The agro-pastoral ecotone serves as an important ecological transition zone between grassland and cropland. It plays a crucial role in providing forage and maintaining the ecological security of Northern China. China has initiated many ecological restoration projects in the agro-pastoral ecotone. Separating the affecting factors of anthropogenic activities and natural factors change on grassland may help guide future ecological restoration projects. This study investigated the grassland change over the agro-pastoral ecotone in Inner Mongolia (APEI) using land use data, vegetation index, and monthly climate data, social and economic data from 2010 to 2020. Two indicators were introduced to evaluate the grassland change in quality and quantity. The average annual maximum NDVI of grassland within each sample was used as a proxy for grassland quality, and the proportion of grassland within each sample was used as a proxy for grassland quantity. The driving mechanisms of grassland quality were examined on different types of grassland. The results showed that (1) from 2010 to 2020, the quantity of grassland in APEI slightly decreased while the quality of the grassland significantly improved; (2) the change in grassland quality was jointly caused by natural factors and human activities, with 66.77% being attributed to natural factors and 33.23% to human activities. In some areas, the alteration in grassland quality was solely determined by either the impacts of natural factors or human-induced disturbances; and (3) temperature and precipitation played different roles in affecting grassland quality among different types of grassland. In some areas, anthropogenic activities, such as farmland and population, would affect grassland quality. The findings of this study would contribute to the understanding of the mechanism of ecological environmental changes in the agro-pastoral ecotone and guide the planning and implementation of future ecological restoration projects in agro-pastoral areas.
... The agro-pastoral ecotone is one of the regions with the most drastic land use changes in China (Yang et al., 2019). In this study, we found that the area of grassland in the agro-pastoral zone of Inner Mongolia showed a decreasing trend in the last two decades (Fig. 3a). ...
The impact of land use/cover change on land surface temperature is an important topic in research on biodiversity , environment planning, sustainability. However, such studies are rare in grassland ecosystems. Based on morphological spatial pattern analysis, we analyzed the change in grassland landscape patterns in the agro-pastoral ecotone of Inner Mongolia from 2000 to 2020. We also examined the impact of grassland landscape pattern change on productivity and land surface temperature. We found that the grassland area decreased significantly, with grassland fragmentation increasing during the past 20 years. A series of landscape types showed different area changes: the area of islet and perforation increased, and the area of core, edge, and bridge decreased. Compared with the core grassland, the edge grassland shows higher productivity, which is a positive edge effect. Moreover, the edge grassland has a lower daytime temperature, higher nighttime temperature, and a smaller daily range than that in the core grassland. Our study highlights that the edge grassland has higher productivity and stronger thermal buffering. We suggest that more attention should be paid to the edge areas in grassland management to alleviate the thermal stress caused by human induced climate change.
... Ecotones provide various ES (Yu et al., 2015) with special ecological features (Smith and Goetz, 2021). Previous studies mainly discussed the impacts of land use changes on ES capacities in ecotone regions (Ferreira et al., 2019;Yang et al., 2019). However, little is known about the characteristics of ecotones to provide ES (Ferreira et al., 2019) and the effects of ecotones on ES mismatches. ...
Clarifying multiple relationships between ecosystem services (ES) supplies and socio-economical demands is the prerequisite of spatial sustainability. Ecotones are specific mixed landscapes where the characteristics of ES supply-demand mismatches are critical to explore ES effect mechanisms. This study structured the relationships that occurred during the ecosystem processes of ES into a framework and identified ecotones in Northeast China (NEC). Multi-step analysis was conducted to analyze the mismatches between 8 pairs of ES supplies and demands and the effects of landscapes on ES mismatches. The results show that the correlations between landscapes and ES mismatches could reflect the effectiveness of landscape management strategies more comprehensively. High demand for food security led to more serious regulating and cultural ES mismatches in NEC. While forest and forest-grassland ecotones were robust to alleviate ES mismatches and landscapes mixed with ecotones performed more balanced in ES supplies. Our study suggests that the comprehensive effects of landscapes on ES mismatches should be given priority in landscape management strategies. Afforestation should be strengthened in NEC, while wetland and ecotones should be protected from boundary shifts and shrinkage caused by agricultural production activities.
... It is against this backdrop that, the present study combined the principal components approach and analytical hierarchical weighting approaches to improve the characterisation of vulnerability. A number of studies have focused on sensitive sites to improve the applicability of vulnerability assessment at different scales, such as, agroecosystems (Meng et al. 2010;Yang et al. 2019), mountainous regions (Thakur et al. 2021), wetlands (Wang 2021;Duan et al. 2022) and geomorphological areas (such as karst) (Chakrabortty et al. 2022;Saengsupavanich 2022) to improve the applicability of vulnerability assessment at different scales. However, this work aims to provide a comprehensive vulnerability assessment to help inform future development interventions. ...
Profiling eco-environmentally vulnerable (EV) areas can contribute to the development of mechanisms for environmental protection and sustainable management of ecological resources. Land cover change, population density, annual precipitation, mean temperature, remotely sensed indices, actual evapotranspiration, land surface temperature (LST), and runoff for the catchment for 1990, 2000, 2011, and 2020 were used to assess spatiotemporal ecological vulnerability. Spatial principal component analysis (SPCA) was used to assess thematic vulnerability for each year. The analytical hierarchical process (AHP) was then used to determine the weighting of the thematic maps to produce the final ecological vulnerability maps. Our results showed that most of the sub-basin had low and moderate vulnerability in 1990, 2000, 2011, and 2020, with the combined proportion of these areas being 80.6%, 55.45%, 83.92%, and 85.1%, respectively. The areas classified as high vulnerability decreased steadily over the investigated years, except in 2000, where an increase was observed. Most areas in the southern parts of the sub-basin were classified as moderately vulnerable, while high vulnerability values were recorded in the northern areas. The southern parts of the Upper Mzingwane basin are drier and less populated than the northern parts. The spatial architecture of vulnerability presented will help inform decision makers in mitigation planning and overall disaster risk management initiatives in the basin.
... This finding shows that with the increase in population and frequent economic activities, the contradiction between man and land is more prominent, resulting in a decrease in the area of protected land. Large areas of protected land are always in areas where the relationship between man and land is relaxed and the population is sparse [54]. However, people are always paying attention to the natural environment. ...
The upper reaches are an important part of the Yangtze River Basin. The basin area is large and the terrain is complex, covering nearly all types of terrestrial ecosystems. This study sorts out the information of 313 protected areas in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River and uses morphological spatial pattern analysis, a minimum cumulative resistance model, and geospatial indicators to quantitatively analyze the relationship between population density, per capita gross domestic product, and the pattern of protected areas in combination with regional economic and social conditions. Results show that the number of national forest parks is the largest, accounting for 31.31% of the study area. In the study area, all types of protected areas are concentrated distribution, protected areas in sparsely populated areas that are larger, more densely populated, and more economically developed, and the corresponding number of protected areas is greater. The study area is divided into five regions through the analysis of the corridors of the protected areas: the source area of the Yangtze River National Park, the Hengduan Mountain Ecological Strict Protection Area, the Qinling-Daba Mountain Ecological Protection Area, the Northern Yunnan-Guizhou Plateau Ecological Protection Area, and the Three Gorges Ecological Control Area, forming an ecological network pattern of “one park, four districts, and three rings” in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River.
... In recent years, agro-meteorological factors have been widely used to define the range of the farming-pastoral ecotone. The 400 mm rainfall contour as the centerline and the 300-450 rainfall contour as the range is the most fundamental division basis and is generally accepted by researchers [49]. This study defined FPENC using 300 mm and 450 mm rainfall contours, supplemented by county administrative divisions (Figure 1b). ...
Evaluating the impacts of land-use change (LUC) on ecosystem services (ESs) is necessary for regional sustainable development, especially for the farming–pastoral ecotone of northern China (FPENC), an ecologically sensitive and fragile region. This study aimed to assess the impacts of LUC on the ESs and provide valuable information for regional planning and management in the FPENC. To accomplish this, we assessed LUC in the FPENC from 2010 to 2020 and simulated land-use patterns in 2030 under three plausible scenarios: the business as usual scenario (BAUS), economic development scenario (EDS), and ecological protection scenario (EPS). Then, we quantified five ESs (including crop production, water yield, soil retention, water purification, and carbon storage) for 2020–2030 and analyzed the trade-offs and synergies among ESs in all scenarios. The results show that FPENC experienced expanding farming land and built-up land throughout 2010–2020. Under the BAUS and EDS from 2000 to 2030, especially EDS, the increase in farming land and built-up land will continue. As a result, crop production and water yield will increase, while soil retention, water purification, and carbon storage will decrease. In contrast, EPS will increase soil retention, water purification, and carbon storage at the cost of a decline in crop production and water yield. These results can provide effective reference information for future regional planning and management in the farming–pastoral ecotone.
... The relevant studies have been conducted to assess regional landscape patterns and driving forces in intercontinental [26], national [27,28], provincial [29], and civic [30,31] contexts. In general, using various landscape indices to measure the spatial-temporal heterogeneity of urban landscape patterns and to quantitatively reveal the landscape components and distribution characteristics is the conventional paradigm of landscape pattern analysis [32][33][34]. In addition, numerous methods and models for detecting the driving forces of the landscape pattern evolution from natural, social, economic vantages, as well as policy factors, have been applied, such as principal component analysis [35], correlation analysis [32], and linear regression analysis [31]. ...
Rapid urban expansion has significantly altered the regional landscape pattern, posing a serious threat to the sustainable development of natural and social ecosystems. By using landscape patterns indices and an area transfer matrix, this study analyzed the spatial-temporal changes of landscape patterns in the karst mountainous cities of southwest China from 2000 to 2020, by taking the central urban area of Guiyang City (CUAG) as the study area. This study explored the spatial and temporal driving factors of landscape pattern changes by using stepwise multiple linear regression and geographic detector methods. The results show: (1) CUAG’s landscape types altered changed drastically, with the area of forestland and construction land rapid increment and cultivated land decrement significantly. (2) The patches of construction land and forestland tended to be aggregated, the degree of fragmentation was reduced, and the shape was complex; cultivated land fragmentation was intensified. The connectivity of the landscape was improved, while the level of landscape diversity declined, the trend of landscape homogenization was obvious. (3) Socioeconomic and geographical endowment drivers have determined landscape pattern changes. The findings of this study may be used to interpret other similar landscapes worldwide and may imply the protection of urban ecosystem and sustainable development.
... He obtained a p-index of 0.00001 through the chi-square test method, which has important guiding significance for the pastoral complex of herdsmen. Yang et al. [22] believed that the land use patterns of pastoral complexes are severely affected by climate and that interventions have jeopardized the value of the ecosystem. He used Landsat TM/ETM data to quantitatively evaluate the ecological service value (ESV) of agricultural pastoral complexes. ...
With the continuous acceleration of the urbanization process, rural areas have gradually put forward construction plans for new rural forms. Pastoral complex is a construction mode of characteristic townships and rural complexes, which has become a new form of social development today. Pastoral complexes provide a new model of new rural construction, and its development is still in the preliminary stage for China. The construction of pastoral complexes involves rural landscape planning, economic management, etc. It is difficult for rural managers to process these complex data characteristics. Big data technology is affecting people’s lives, and the discipline of landscape architecture is also deeply affected by big data. This paper mainly uses data mining technology and neural network method to carry out feature mining and prediction on the landscape planning and management methods of beautiful rural pastoral complexes. In this paper, a data mining algorithm is used to classify the landscape types and locations of rural complex, and the neural network method is used to predict the landscape characteristics. The results show that the methods of data mining and neural network are feasible and reliable both in the proportion of classification and in the prediction of landscape planning. The maximum error of the prediction of landscape design is 2.87%, and the minimum error is only 0.79% using the neural network method, which is an acceptable error range.
... From a spatial point of view, NPP differs between regions due to the limitations imposed by the main influencing factors (Figure 4). Different levels of productivity exist, but places with low productivity will lead to a vicious circle of land occupation-ecosystem deteriorationfurther land occupation (Yang et al., 2019). Therefore, improving the productivity of cultivated land in areas with low productivity is essential not only for grain yield, but also for sustainable ecological security, as it will minimize expansion and prevent encroachment of agriculture onto other land types. ...
The inefficient utilization of cultivated land puts the productivity of cultivated land in a low development state. The key challenge for the efficient utilization of cultivated land is to clarify how various factors affect the spatial differentiation pattern of cultivated land productivity (CLP), to improve food production. However, evaluating the impact of the intensity and direction of CLP in large‐scale areas is a difficulty and a gap. In this study, we used net primary productivity (NPP) to calculate the productivity of cultivated land and reveal its spatial differentiation. Meanwhile, this scientific study examined the spatio‐temporal heterogeneity of cultivated land productivity (CLP) and determined the effect intensity and the direction of effect of various factors on productivity, using the Songhua River Basin (SRB) in China as a research case. We used genetic algorithms to modify and improve a neural network model of factor dimensionality reduction, combined with path analysis, cluster analysis, and regression analysis, to identify the main factors impacting CLP, synergies between these factors, and effect intensity and direction. The results showed that: (1) the area of cultivated land in SRB decreased, but NPP of cultivated land area increased, during 2000‐2020; (2) spatially, NPP was relatively low in the middle of the basin and gradually increased towards the periphery; (3) The main positive factors were the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), slope, precipitation, evapotranspiration, and total nitrogen, while the main negative factors were temperature, Ratio Vegetation Index, and total phosphorus. Individual principal factors and the synergy between these factors gave CLP different temporal and spatial heterogeneity. Collaborative management of the threshold range of various influencing factors would improve the CLP. This novel information on spatial‐temporal differentiation and factors influencing CLP can be important in formulating science‐based and feasible policies for land protection and for improving CLP. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.
... The Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research provided the gross domestic production (GDP) and population data of 1-km grids. In these datasets, many factors closely related to GDP and population, such as land use type, light intensity values at night, and densities of residential areas, were comprehensively considered [10,31]. ...
... By reducing the influence of multicollinearity among indices, partial least squares-discriminant analysis makes the analysis of the relationship between independent and dependent variables more reasonable [41]. More importantly, the variable importance in the projection (VIP) score indicates the influence of independent variables on dependent variables [10,42], and the equation is ...
... Urban pollution and soil erosion can be prevented by regulation services, whose degradation will seriously threaten urban security [12]. Additionally, support services are the basis and source of the other three ecosystem service types [10,50]. ...
Ecosystem services are the material basis of economic and social development, and play essential roles in the sustainable development of ecosystems. Urbanization can remarkably alter the provision of ecosystem services. Most studies in this area have focused on densely populated metropolises with poor ecological environments, while comparatively few studies have focused on cities with low ecological pressures. Therefore, to avoid continuing to engage in the repetitive pattern of destroying first and rehabilitating later, quantitative analyses of urbanization and ecosystem services should be carried out in representative cities. In this study, based on partial least squares-discriminant analysis, kernel density estimation, and correlation analysis, we quantitatively evaluated the impact of urbanization on ecosystem services in Weifang city. The Data Center for Resources and Environmental Sciences at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research provided remote sensing data on land use, the gross domestic production (GDP), population data, and ecosystem services. The results were as follows: (1) The variation in population, GDP, and built-up areas consistently increased throughout the study period, whereas the ecosystem service values (ESVs) decreased; (2) food production, raw material production, nutrient cycle maintenance, and soil conservation were decisive ecosystem services that led to vast reductions in ESVs during the process of urbanization; and (3) the negative correlation coefficient between built-up areas and ecosystem services was greater than that between the population or GDP and ecosystem services, which indicated that the impacts of population and economic urbanization on ecosystem services lagged behind the impact of land urbanization. This study provides references for fully recognizing the ecological effects of urbanization, and make suggestions regarding the application of ecosystem services in sustainable development.
