Landscape Ecology Perspective Research Articles

An in-depth multiscale analysis of farmland abandonment and recultivation dynamics in the Yangtze River Delta, China: A landscape ecology perspective empowered by google earth engine

Farmland abandonment represents the extreme utilization of marginal land and results from the interplay between humans and the environment. In the Yangtze River Delta region of China, a significant economic hub, understanding the landscape patterns and driving mechanisms of farmland abandonment and recultivation land is crucial for regional sustainable development. This study aims to map the extent of farmland abandonment in 2020 and recultivation land in 2021 across the Yangtze River Delta, analyze the landscape patterns of farmland abandonment and recultivation land on multiple scales, and explore their driving mechanisms. Utilizing multi-source data and the Land Use Trajectory Change Method on the Google Earth Engine platform, we classified land use and identified farmland abandonment, fallow land, active farmland, and recultivation land. Spatial statistical analysis was conducted to investigate the distribution and patterns of farmland abandonment and recultivation land at Yangtze River Delta, provincial, and municipal scales. Additionally, a stepwise multiple linear regression model was employed to dissect the main driving forces of farmland abandonment and recultivation land. Results revealed that farmland abandonment in the Yangtze River Delta region exceeded an abandonment rate of 10%, with a reclamation rate in the following year of less than 30%. The spatial distribution of farmland abandonment and recultivation land varied significantly across different scales. On the Yangtze River Delta scale, farmland abandonment was positively influenced by altitude, distance to rivers, and temperature, while recultivation land was positively correlated with night light intensity. At the provincial and municipal scales, the driving forces exhibited scaling effects, with different factors becoming significant. Our findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the complexity and diversity of farmland abandonment in the Yangtze River Delta region. The results provide a scientific basis for formulating land use policies, promoting sustainable agricultural development, and ensuring ecological balance. By uncovering the land use status and ecosystem balance influenced by human-environment interactions, this study offers insights into achieving a harmonious coexistence between economy, society, and ecology in the Yangtze River Delta region.

Ecological Suitability Evaluation of City Construction Based on Landscape Ecological Analysis

Ecological suitability evaluation is a critical component of regional sustainable development and construction, serving as a foundation for optimizing spatial patterns of regional growth. This is particularly pertinent in karst mountainous regions characterized by limited land resources and heightened ecosystem vulnerability, where a quantitative assessment of ecological suitability for land development is both crucial and urgent. Based on the fundamental principles of structural and functional dynamics in landscape ecology, this study focuses on Gui’an New Area, a designated urban development zone situated in the karst landscape of Guizhou Province. An index system was established encompassing three dimensions: ecological elements, ecological significance, and ecological resilience, utilizing the integrated ecological resistance (IER) model to evaluate the suitability of regional development and construction. The results reveal that the eastern region exhibits higher suitability compared to the central and western regions, with the northwest region demonstrating the lowest suitability overall. Relatively speaking, the evaluation of geological environment suitability and the comprehensive ecological constraints associated with development and construction indicates that the areas currently planned and ongoing reflect flat terrain and low ecological risk. Furthermore, within the scope of ecosystem dynamic adaptation, developmental activities in these regions exert minimal impact on the natural ecosystem, thereby demonstrating a high suitability for development and construction. In terms of future key development zones, areas with gentle slopes ranging from 8 to 15 degrees are recommended, aligning with the actual requirements for cultivated land protection. The total area designated as prohibited development zones constitutes the smallest proportion, representing only 9.45%, which is significantly lower than that of priority development zones (38.75%) and moderate development zones (22.45%). From the perspective of landscape ecology, this paper provides a comprehensive investigation into the ecological suitability evaluation system for development and construction in the karst regions of Southwest China, offering valuable insights for assessing ecological suitability in similar areas.

Analysis of Urban Form Dynamics in The Suburbs of Surakarta City 2013-2023

Urban Form has become necessary for city planning management to see the sustainability of a city. A better understanding of different urban forms is imperative to facilitate the evolution of cities towards a more sustainable urban development trajectory in the future. The study aims to analyze the dynamics of urban form and the changes in land cover within the peri-urban area of Surakarta City, which is directly influenced by the development of Surakarta City. The analysis was conducted from a landscape ecology perspective, employing a spatial metrics approach at the landscape level to assess the dynamics of urban form using quantitative descriptive, including a spatial approach. A similar approach was adopted at the class level in order to examine the dynamics of land cover changes. The results of the image analysis were validated using the Kappa index, yielding an image accuracy level of 0.86 (86%). The results of this study show that the urban form in the peri-urban area of Surakarta City tends to move towards a compact urban form. Meanwhile, each land cover, vegetation, and water body become increasingly fragmented, with areas becoming narrower as time passes. Built-up and agricultural land are becoming more compact and concentrated along with development. In conclusion, the dynamics of urban form in the peri-urban area of Surakarta City tends to lead to compact urban form.

Landscape metrics for land use/cover change and green space pattern in Can Tho city in 1998-2020 based on remote sensing and GIS

Changes in land cover/green space in Can Tho city in the period 1998-2020 were analyzed based on remote sensing data and the perspective of landscape ecology. The data collected from JAXA on land cover/land use classification entire Can Tho city in the period 1998-2020 was used to extract landscape metrics and to analyze the changes by a conversion matrix. The result shows a complex change in the urban green space in the period 1998 - 2020 in Can Tho. Research results show that Can Tho city had rice paddies and other croplands accounting for the majority of the land use structure. In the period 1998-2020, the city experienced a major shrinkage in croplands. Although other land use/cover types fluctuated differently, the fragmentation process still prevailed with fragments having discrete connections in space. The process of urbanization occurred with the expansion of built-up, but the concentration level was not high, with small fragments appearing sporadically distributed. However, comparing the landscape indices in the period 1998 – 2020 showed the aggregation process was increasingly taking place, and the level of fragmentation had tended to decrease. This trend was evidenced by the sharp increase in the number of patches, effective mesh size, and splitting index simultaneously with the gradual decline of the LPI index. The research results show high potential in expanding green space in Can Tho as well as application in planning urban green space development.

Landscape Ecology Analysis of Traditional Villages: A Case Study of Ganjiang River Basin

Traditional villages, rich in historical and cultural value, hold a high level of preservation value. In the process of urbanization, traditional villages face the crisis of decline, making it difficult to perpetuate the carried cultural heritage. The Ganjiang River Basin hosts numerous traditional villages with rich research value, making the study of their preservation and development in this region a significant topic. This paper, from the perspective of landscape ecology, employs geographic detectors to analyze the driving factors behind the emergence of traditional villages in the Ganjiang River Basin, summarizing the spatial distribution characteristics of traditional villages. A classification method based on village landscape features is adopted to categorize traditional villages in the Ganjiang River Basin, providing a reference for planning the preservation and development of traditional villages. The research results show that plain areas are more suitable for the continuation of traditional villages; a single suitable environmental element cannot provide an environment conducive to the development of traditional villages, which is the result of the combined effect of multiple suitable elements; the study has divided traditional village landscapes into nine types, with clear distribution differences among different types of villages; for different regions and types of traditional villages, it is necessary to balance development and protection tendencies and plan differently according to environmental characteristics.

Changes in landscape structure in the Pratigi Environmental Protection Area, Bahia, Brazil

This study examined the landscape structure of a sustainable-use conservation unit within the Atlantic Forest biome in Bahia, Brazil, from a landscape ecology perspective. The primary objective was to analyze the landscape structure of the Pratigi Environmental Protection Area (Pratigi EPA) using structural landscape metrics. The research focused the question: What were the changes in the landscape structure patterns within the Pratigi EPA between 1985 and 2021? Annual land use and occupation data for Brazil from 1985 to 2021 were obtained from the MapBiomas database, and landscape metrics were analyzed using R software. The results indicated that the forest class was predominant in the landscape but decreased from 122,394.15 ha in 1985 to 107,737.29 ha in 2021, a loss of 14,656.86 ha. Conversely, the agriculture class increased from 28,298.88 ha in 1985 to 43,453.62 ha in 2021, representing an increase of 15,154.74 ha. These findings support the hypothesis that the exploitation of natural resources within the Pratigi EPA may reduce biodiversity due to the expansion of agricultural activities. Therefore, new public policies and the implementation of sustainable measures to mitigate environmental conflicts are necessary to preserve ecological and ecosystem processes in the region.

Ecological Design of Expressway Based on the Perspective of Landscape Ecology

The construction and operation of expressways will also bring a series of environmental and ecological problems, such as land use conflicts, ecological damage, environmental pollution, etc. In order to solve such problems, it is necessary to strengthen the application of landscape ecology. From the perspective of landscape ecology, this paper first introduces the impact of expressways on the ecological environment, and then analyzes the principles of expressway ecological landscape design. Landscaping, ecological environment, customer satisfaction, and other aspects have all performed well, with an optimization rate of over 90%. Future expressway design can strengthen the application of landscape ecology.

Spatially explicit simulation of deforestation using the Ising-like neutral model

Deforestation is a prominent example of anthropogenic land change. Here we investigate deforestation from a landscape ecology perspective by process-based modeling of a sequence of consecutive landscape patterns starting from a homogeneous forest and ending in homogeneous agricultural land. We propose an Ising-like neutral model to mimic the deforestation dynamics. Our goal is to demonstrate that such a simple conceptualization of the deforestation process is capable of simulating an evolutionary sequence of landscape patterns matching empirical data. The model has only two parameters, one representing an external pressure (for or against deforestation), and another representing a propensity of land for spatial autocorrelation. We perform a suite of simulations to link a process, as parameterized by the values of the two parameters, to the sequence of landscape patterns. We have found a narrow range of parameters for which the model quantitatively and visually matches empirical data. This indicates that the Ising-like neutral model captures the essential aspects of a deforestation process and that the temporal sequence of intermediate landscape patterns does not depend on the details of the process.

Does landscape ecology matter to a country's financial development? Evidence from China

Landscape ecology is vital and significantly contributes to the country's social and economic growth. This concept is directly linked with sustainable development goals, and a growing potential exists that landscape ecology will replace conventional landscaping practices as the authoritative framework for environmentally responsible landscaping. Decentralizing spatial planning policy requires local actors to work together to determine what physical changes must be made to the environment to reflect their respective values. To be applicable in such bottom‐up landscape‐development processes, this study checks the relationship between the landscape ecological perspective and the financial development of China over the period 1995–2021 by using the autoregressive distributed lag model. The findings indicated that green investment, environmental pressure and energy consumption play a significant role in China's financial development. Landscape ecological research should pay more attention to these dilemmas as a unifying common ground to produce a joint knowledge base that can be incorporated into multifunctional, actor‐led landscape development. This research adds value to the modern pattern‐process model in landscape ecology by developing this idea into a knowledgeable framework. Subsequently, this study promotes green investment activities and consumption of energy sources so that landscape ecology aims should be obtained through interdisciplinary research. Future research can be done by taking the emerging economies into account.

Analysis of the association between image resolution and landscape metrics using multi-sensor LULC maps

This study aims to investigate the changes in landscape metrics with varying spatial resolution from Sentinel-2 (10 m), SPOT 7 (1.5 m), Pleaides (0.5 m), and Worldview-4 (0.3 m) images. We implemented Geographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) techniques to all images to identify 21 land use and land cover (LULC) classes, which were then used to calculate several landscape metrics. We performed the Welch hypothesis testing on the class-level landscape metrics and applied Standardized Principal Component Analysis (PCA) with the correlation matrix to reveal the multivariate pattern of landscape metrics. Our results showed that 10 m and even the 1.5 m spatial resolutions cannot guarantee the identification of all LULC classes, and class areas change with varying spatial resolution (sometimes with 200% differences). Sentinel-2 images have some limitations, specifically from the landscape ecological planning perspective; on the other hand, Pleaides and Worldview-4 seem good alternatives to understand habitats’ viability and landscape isolation/connectivity.

The Evolutionary Process and Mechanism of Cultural Landscapes: An Integrated Perspective of Landscape Ecology and Evolutionary Economic Geography

Cultural landscapes are joint masterpieces of man and nature with outstanding universal value. Adequate knowledge of their evolutionary process and mechanism is crucial to their development, protection, and management. However, theoretical understanding about such has been limited as existing studies tend to focus on the descriptive and interpretative analysis of the evolutionary process and pay less attention to the underlying mechanism of the process. Integrating the traditional perspective of landscape ecology in cultural landscape research and theories of path dependence and path creation in evolutionary economic geography, this paper constructs a triple-layered integrated analytical framework of cultural landscape evolution and applies the framework to empirically examine the cultural landscape evolution of Mount Lushan. To grasp an accurate and full picture of the process, field observation and historical data collection were carried out, and a combination of thematic analysis and chronological organization was conducted. The research finds that the cultural landscape evolution of Mount Lushan has experienced three stages, i.e., coexistence and mutual influence of multiple cultures, conflict and integration of Chinese and Western cultures, as well as landscape transformation, revival, and expansion. Such evolution is a non-linear, dynamic, and complex process across which the elements, functions, and patterns of landscapes were constantly constructed and reconstructed. Fundamentally, it is the result of the synergistic effect of path dependence and path creation, and is driven by the interplay of the behavior of associated actors and the change of contextuality. The findings of this study can provide some strategic references for the management practice of cultural landscape heritage sites.

Spatial–Temporal Evolution Characteristics of Landscape Ecological Risk in the Agro-Pastoral Region in Western China: A Case Study of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region

Landscape ecological risk assessment can reflect the impact of landscape pattern on ecological processes and functions, and has become an important method for predicting and measuring the quality and dynamic evolution of the ecological environment. Studying the trend of landscape ecological risk evolution is important for optimizing the regional landscape pattern and maintaining the sustainable development of the ecological environment in ecologically fragile areas. Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is a typical agro-pastoral region in northern China, which is facing prominent ecological and environmental problems such as soil erosion and land desertification. With the environmental problems becoming more and more serious, the ecological risk also poses increasing potential danger, which becomes one of the bottlenecks restricting regional economic development. This paper selects Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as the study area. Based on land use data in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015, the landscape ecological risk assessment model is built from the perspective of landscape ecology, and combines the spatial statistical analysis method and the gravity shift model to explore the spatial–temporal evolution of the spatial distribution characteristics of landscape ecological risk. The results showed that: (1) During the study period, the area of farmland and grasslands has decreased, and the area of forest, water, and settlement has increased; (2) The transformation of land-use types is mainly distributed in the central northern plain and the south valley, where human activities are intensive. The transfer relationship among different land-use types is mainly between grasslands and farmland; (3) The hotspots and aggregation area of landscape ecological risk are mainly distributed along the city belt and irrigated agricultural areas along the Yellow River in the northern Ningxia Plain; (4) From 2000 to 2005, the landscape ecological risk level decreased, and from 2005 to 2015, the landscape ecological risk index continued to rise. We conclude that the natural environment of Ningxia determines the characteristics of the spatial distribution of landscape ecological risk, while the use and modification of land through human activities are the main driving factors of landscape ecological risk change. The results of landscape ecological risk assessment at different scales based on the landscape index will provide support for regional environmental management.

Urban Lake Scenic Protected Area Zoning Based on Ecological Sensitivity Analysis and Remote Sensing: A Case Study of Chaohu Lake Basin, China

The protection of urban lakes is important for the construction and development of the city and the eco-environment. Affected by urban expansion, most urban lake scenic areas have suffered from a reduction in area and ecological degradation. Protecting and restoring urban lake scenic areas has been a hot topic among the public. Given this background information, we analyzed the ecological problems and contradictions from the perspective of landscape ecology. This study evaluated the landscape pattern and ecological sensitivity in the Chaohu Lake Basin, China. The proposed method was based on the analytical hierarchy process (AHP) and geographical information system (GIS). The results showed that the ecological sensitivity map was divided into four sensitivity levels consisting of level 1, level 3, level 5, and level 7, which represent 65%, 27%, 5%, and 2% of the study area. It was found that highly sensitive areas existed primarily in the highlands, where the natural conditions were poorer than in other areas and human activities have been developing rapidly. Additionally, the medium sensitive levels occurred in the low lands, probably in response to agricultural practices. Based on our results, three ecological zones were proposed, which require different protection and utilization solutions in order to restore the local ecological environment in terms of sustainable development.

The Quantitative Impact of the Arable Land Protection Policy on the Landscape of Farmland Abandonment in Guangdong Province

In the past two decades, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs of China (MARA) has issued a series of strict cultivated land protection policies to prevent the spread of farmland abandonment and maintain a dynamic balance between the quantity and quality of arable land. However, high-speed economic development, strict arable land protection policies, and ecological security and sustainable development strategies interacting with human activities have brought challenges to quantifying the effectiveness of arable land protection policies. In this study, we proposed a method to quantify the impacts of the arable land protection policies and evaluate the quantitative impacts on farmland abandonment in Guangdong Province after 2014 from the perspective of landscape ecology. The results illustrated that the landscape fragmentation of farmland abandonment in Guangdong Province decreased after the new arable land policies were issued. More annual farmland abandonment (AFA) shifted to seasonal farmland abandonment (SFA), revealing the considerable pronounced effects of farmland abandonment management. The new policies effectively restrained the area increase for AFA in the regions with lower rural population (RPOP) and lower gross domestic product (GDP), and reduced the fragmentation of AFA in the regions with the highest RPOP and lower GDP. Additionally, the new policies effectively restrained the fragmentation increase for SFA in the regions with lower RPOP and lower GDP, and reduced the area increase for SFA in the regions with the highest RPOP and lower GDP. The management effect was not that significant in the regions with higher RPOP and higher GDP. These findings will provide important data references for arable land decision making in southern China.

Effects of landscape structure on restoration success in tropical premontane forest

Reversing large-scale habitat degradation and deforestation goes beyond what can be achieved by site-level ecological restoration and a landscape ecology perspective is fundamental. Here we assess the relative importance of tree cover and its configuration on forest-dependent birds and late-successional tree seedlings in restoration sites in southern Costa Rica. The abundance and species richness of birds increased in landscapes with more corridors, higher tree cover, and lower levels of fragmentation, highlighting the importance of riparian corridors for connectivity, and continuous tree cover as suitable habitat. Landscape variables affected abundance and species richness of seedlings similarly, but effects were weaker, possibly because seedlings face establishment limitation in addition to dispersal limitation. Moreover, the scale of landscape effects on seedlings was small, likely because proximal individual trees can significantly influence recruitment in restoration plots. Results underscore the importance of incorporating landscape-level metrics to restoration projects, as knowing the extent, and how the landscape may affect restoration outcomes can help to infer what kind of species will arrive to restoration plots.

How Snow Leopards Share the Same Landscape with Tibetan Agro-pastoral Communities in the Chinese Himalayas

The snow leopard (Panthera uncia) inhabits a human-altered alpine landscape and is often tolerated by residents in regions where the dominant religion is Tibetan Buddhism, including in Qomolangma NNR on the northern side of the Chinese Himalayas. Despite these positive attitudes, many decades of rapid economic development and population growth can cause increasing disturbance to the snow leopards, altering their habitat use patterns and ultimately impacting their conservation. We adopted a dynamic landscape ecology perspective and used multi-scale technique and occupancy model to better understand snow leopard habitat use and coexistence with humans in an 825 km2 communal landscape. We ranked eight hypothetical models containing potential natural and anthropogenic drivers of habitat use and compared them between summer and winter seasons within a year. HABITAT was the optimal model in winter, whereas ANTHROPOGENIC INFLUENCE was the top ranking in summer (AICcw≤2). Overall, model performance was better in the winter than in the summer, suggesting that perhaps some latent summer covariates were not measured. Among the individual variables, terrain ruggedness strongly affected snow leopard habitat use in the winter, but not in the summer. Univariate modeling suggested snow leopards prefer to use rugged land in winter with a broad scale (4000 m focal radius) but with a lesser scale in summer (30 m); Snow leopards preferred habitat with a slope of 22° at a scale of 1000 m throughout both seasons, which is possibly correlated with prey occurrence. Furthermore, all covariates mentioned above showed inextricable ties with human activities (presence of settlements and grazing intensity). Our findings show that multiple sources of anthropogenic activity have complex connections with snow leopard habitat use, even under low human density when anthropogenic activities are sparsely distributed across a vast landscape. This study is also valuable for habitat use research in the future, especially regarding covariate selection for finite sample sizes in inaccessible terrain.

Virtual special issue: Insights from a landscape ecological perspective for tropical biology and conservation

AbstractWe conducted a keyword search to sample a subset of research on landscape ecology published in Biotropica between 2016 and mid‐2021. Our search returned 112 studies, which we summarize in terms of focal taxon and habitat. From this pool of studies, we selected 14 papers for the virtual special issue “Insights from a Landscape Ecological Perspective for Tropical Biology and Conservation.” The 14 papers selected exemplify notable trends in recent research in landscape ecology and provide an opportunity to highlight suggestions for high‐impact future research: 1) continuing to expand how we think about responses to landscape change by embracing new measures of immunology and gene expression, 2) documenting the conservation value of small habitats as essential reservoirs of biodiversity, 3) clarifying the relative impacts of habitat loss and fragmentation, with particular emphasis on cross‐scale studies from a variety of landscapes and taxonomic groups.

Found in Complexity, Lost in Fragmentation: Putting Soil Degradation in a Landscape Ecology Perspective.

The United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) assumes spatial disparities in land resources as a key driver of soil degradation and early desertification processes all over the world. Although regional divides in soil quality have been frequently observed in Mediterranean-type ecosystems, the impact of landscape configuration on the spatial distribution of sensitive soils was poorly investigated in Southern Europe, an affected region sensu UNCCD. Our study proposes a spatially explicit analysis of 16 ecological metrics (namely, patch size and shape, fragmentation, interspersion, and juxtaposition) applied to three classes of a landscape with different levels of exposure to land degradation (‘non-affected’, ‘fragile’, and ‘critical’). Land classification was based on the Environmentally Sensitive Area Index (ESAI) calculated for Italy at 3 time points along a 50-year period (1960, 1990, 2010). Ecological metrics were calculated at both landscape and class scale and summarized for each Italian province—a relevant policy scale for the Italian National Action Plan (NAP) to combat desertification. With the mean level of soil sensitivity rising over time almost everywhere in Italy, ‘non-affected’ land became more fragmented, the number of ‘fragile’ and ‘critical’ patches increased significantly, and the average patch size of both classes followed the same trend. Such dynamics resulted in intrinsically disordered landscapes, with (i) larger (and widely connected) ‘critical’ land patches, (ii) spatially diffused and convoluted ‘fragile’ land patches, and (iii) a more interspersed and heterogeneous matrix of ‘non affected’ land. Based on these results, we discussed the effects of increasing numbers and sizes of ‘critical’ patches in terms of land degradation. A sudden expansion of ‘critical’ land may determine negative environmental consequences since (i) the increasing number of these patches may trigger desertification risk and (ii) the buffering effect of neighboring, non-affected land is supposed to be less efficient, and this contains a downward spiral toward land degradation less effectively. Policy strategies proposed in the NAPs of affected countries are required to account more explicitly on the intrinsic, spatio-temporal evolution of ‘critical’ land patches in affected regions.

Theoretical basis and Chinese practice for environmental protection of lakes with better water quality

目前，我国湖泊富营养化及蓝藻水华问题十分突出，国家高度重视湖泊的生态环境保护.自“九五”以来，国家就投入太湖、巢湖、滇池“老三湖”等重污染湖泊的治理，但成本巨大，且历经近30年才初见成效.按照湖泊污染程度，湖泊治理与保护可分为“污染治理型”“防治结合型”“生态保育型”3大类.“老三湖”的治理是典型的“先污染、后治理”的模式，水质较好湖泊主要属于生态保育型湖泊，因此，“老三湖”治理模式不适用于水质较好湖泊的保护.本文系统总结了我国水质较好湖泊优先保护理念的形成和水质较好湖泊专项实施的历程.根据水质较好湖泊的特点，及其生态系统退化与修复的一般过程，提出了水质较好湖泊保护的基本思路.从热力学角度，阐明了氮磷营养盐输入湖泊生态系统中是熵增过程，也是湖泊生态系统退化的根本原因，湖泊氮磷污染负荷源头控制是关键.湖泊流域生态安全格局是确保湖泊生态系统健康的基础，从景观生态学角度，阐明了优化湖泊流域水土资源利用、优化发展模式是减轻湖泊环境压力的重要途径.在浅水湖泊生态系统，以沉水植物占优势的“清水态”和以浮游植物占优势的“浊水态”转换过程不是沿着同一条途径，存在上临界阈值和下临界阈值，水生态修复过程表现出一种迟滞的现象.从湖泊水生态系统稳态转换理论角度，阐明了湖泊生态修复工程应在湖泊生态系统发生退化转变之前实施，才能获得较高的环境效益.通过国家财政专项对81个水质较好湖泊的支持，既能促进湖泊流域经济社会发展，又能确保湖泊水环境质量变好，湖泊水生态系统逐步改善.建议加强不同类型湖泊保护模式的总结，深入对水质较好湖泊生态系统演替理论和保护技术研究，支撑国家系统开展水质较好湖泊保护.;At present, the problems of lake eutrophication and cyanobacterial blooms in China are still very prominent and the state attaches great importance to the ecological environment protection of lakes. Since the Ninth Five-Year Plan, the government has started to control the old three lakes of Lake Taihu, Lake Chaohu and Lake Dianchi, but it has spent huge treatment costs. After nearly 30 years of governance, the trend of further deterioration of water quality in the old three lakes was initially curbed. According to the degree of lake pollution, lake control and protection can be divided into three types:pollution control type, combined prevention and control type and ecological conservation type. The governance of the old three lakes was a typical pollution first, treatment later model, and the lakes with better water quality mainly belong to ecological conservation type, so the treatment model for old three lakes is not suitable for the protection of lakes with better water quality. This paper systematically summarizes the formation of the concept of priority protection of lakes with better water quality in China and the implementation history of special lakes with better water quality. According to the characteristics of the lake with better water quality and the general process of ecosystem degradation and restoration, the basic idea for the protection of the lakes with better water quality was put forward. From a thermodynamic perspective, the entropy increase process of nitrogen and phosphorus nutrient input into the lake ecosystem was analyzed, revealing the root cause of the degradation of the lake ecosystem and the importance of source control of nitrogen and phosphorus pollution load into lakes. The ecological security pattern of lake basin is the basis for ensuring the health of lake basin ecosystem. From the perspective of landscape ecology, this paper clarifies that optimizing the use of soil and water resources in lake basin and optimizing the development pattern are important ways to reduce the environmental pressure on the lake. The transition process of the clear water state dominated by submerged plants and the turbid water state dominated by phytoplankton in shallow lake ecosystems is not along the same pathway. There are upper and lower critical thresholds, and the aquatic ecological restoration process shows a hysteresis phenomenon. From the theory of steady-state transformation of lake water ecosystem, we clarified that the lake ecological restoration project should be implemented before the degradation transformation of lake ecosystem to obtain higher protection benefits. The support of 81 lakes with better water quality through the special national finance can not only promote the economic and social development of the lake basin, but also ensure the improvement of the quality of the lake water environment and improvement of lake water ecosystem. We recommended to strengthen the summary of different types of lake protection models, conduct in-depth research on the theory of ecosystem succession and protection technology of lakes with better water quality, and support the state to carry out the protection of lakes with better water quality systematically.

Using a landscape ecological perspective to analyze regime shifts in social\u2013ecological systems: a case study on grassland degradation of the Tibetan Plateau

ContextLandscape ecology thinking and social–ecological system (SES) thinking investigate human–environment relationships from the perspective of ‘space’ and ‘system’, respectively. To date, empirical landscape ecology studies attempting to understand SES complexities are rare.ObjectivesUsing the Tibetan pastoral landscape as an empirical example, we conceptualize the black-soil formation as SES regime shifts. We seek to illustrate the spatial patterns of black-soil formation in the Tibetan SES, and to reveal their underlying ecological processes.MethodsWe conducted interdisciplinary research in a Tibetan pastoral village. We obtained quantitative data on historical land-use intensity (LUI) and the associated management narratives. Landsat-based NDVI time series were used to derive a grassland productivity proxy and to reconstruct the process leading to the up-scaling of the regime shift of degradation.ResultsImportant SES features, such as LUI, productivity and degradation risk are heterogeneously distributed in space. Land-use intensification at farm-scales in the 1990s increased landscape-scale degradation risks. Eventually the regime shift of degradation scaled up from the plot level to the landscape level in the 2010s. The time lag was related to the gradual invasion of a native burrowing animal, the plateau pika, which inhabits low-vegetation height pastures.ConclusionsOur study shows that landscape ecology thinking provides an important spatial perspective to understanding SES complexities. The finding that unfavorable SES regime shifts are strongly linked across spatial scales implies that an ‘entry point’ into an adaptive management circle should be initiated when local-scale regime shifts are perceived and interpreted as early warning signals.