Ecological Resource Management Research Articles

Optimization Strategies for Waterfront Plant Landscapes in Traditional Villages: A Scenic Beauty Estimation–Entropy Weighting Method Analysis

This investigation delves into the waterfront plant landscapes of traditional villages in Western Hunan, China, aiming to bolster sustainable ecological resource management, amplify ecological culture, and ameliorate environmental standards. Furthermore, it endeavors to furnish a theoretical scaffold for the meticulous construction and assessment of these landscapes. This study has illustrated the waterfront botanical landscapes of 32 traditional hamlets within the Xiangxi region, integrating prior research on the waterfront botanical regression model based on the Scenic Beauty Estimation (SBE) method. It established and investigated fifteen landscape factors pivotal to the aesthetic valorization of these village waterfronts. The study concocted a beauty quality evaluation model, unearthing a significant correlation (p < 0.01) across evaluations by students majoring in landscape architecture, expert landscape architects, and laypersons, thus underscoring a consensus in aesthetic judgments. A noteworthy correlation between the beauty value (Z-value) and the entropy weight value was elucidated through the equation EWM = −0.106 + 0.425ZSBE, showcasing the landscape quality’s variance among the studied villages. The formulated evaluation model accentuates the significance of seasonal variation, scale affinity, and a rich hierarchical structure.

Does Out-Migration Really Affect Forestry Ecological Security? An Empirical Case Study Based on Heilongjiang Province, China

In the new era, coordinating the relationship between population flow and forestry ecological security has become an important challenge. In this study, we take Heilongjiang Province in China as an example, and through the combination of macro data and micro in-depth interviews, we explore whether population mobility really affects the intrinsic mechanism of forestry ecological security from the perspective of population exodus from forest areas. Based on the DPSIR model, we constructed a forestry ecological security evaluation index system, used the TOPSIS multi-objective decision analysis method to quantify the forestry ecological security status from 2000 to 2022, and utilized the impulse response function of the VAR model to explore the dynamic response relationship between population outflow and forestry ecological security. The results of this study show that, firstly, the comprehensive index of forestry ecological security level in Heilongjiang Province exhibits a fluctuating upward trend from 2000 to 2022. Second, forestry ecological security has a lagged effect on population outflow, and population outflow has almost no effect on forestry ecological security at present. Third, while the population outflow of Luobei County reduces the interference of human activities on the natural environment, it also brings about the pressures of insufficient forestry ecological resource management and forestry personnel. The Dongfanghong Forestry Bureau has effectively improved the efficiency of ecological construction and ecological security through the introduction of digitalized and intelligent equipment, which has effectively compensated for the negative impact of population outflow on the reduction in ecological management personnel. These findings will help realize the coordinated development of population, economy and society, and ecology.

Palaeoenvironmental changes since the last deglaciation recorded at Moon Lake on the Bashang Plateau, northern China: implications for the future sustainability of regional forests

Warming-induced ecological degradation and the continuous shrinking of lakes have been observed in the Bashang Plateau, northern China, leading to the recent demise of cultivated forests. The objective of this paper is to investigate the long-term palaeoenvironmental context of these recent changes through a multi-proxy sediment core analysis at Moon Lake to better understand forest sustainability in the future. The core chronology was determined based on seven accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dates and covers the period from 14,000 yr BP to the present. The Moon Lake record reveals four climate stages: (1) a warm and humid period followed by a cold and arid phase corresponding to the Allerod warm period and the Younger Dryas stadial (14,000 to 11,700 yr BP), (2) a relatively warm and humid period (11,700 to 7400 yr BP), (3) a period of fluctuating dry-wet-dry changes (7400 to 4000 yr BP), and (4) a relatively arid period (4000 yr BP to present). Since 1800 yr BP, drought conditions have intensified, and significant warming and drying trends have been observed over the past 500 yr BP. This consistent warming and drying trend over the past few centuries indicate that large-scale afforestation is no longer sustainable in the Bashang region. Coupled with instrumental records of soil drying and water scarcity, our Holocene records of climate change are useful for ecological resource management and sustainable forestry planning in the region.

Urban planning failure in the protection of ecologically sensitive areas: factors that contribute to the ineffective management of ecological resources in Kumasi

The conventional literature on urban wetlands has, over the years, focused on the effects of urbanization on the encroachment of wetlands and ecosystem services. Nonetheless, little is known about how institutions respond to the encroachments along ecologically sensitive areas within the context of the global south. A comprehensive insight into the management strategies adopted by institutions in ecosystem services governance is essential for advancing the sustainability discourse in Ghana. Using the qualitative research approach, face-to-face interviews were conducted among relevant stakeholder institutions. The findings indicate that the strategies adopted by institutions in the management of ecologically sensitive areas are top-down in nature and this has been ineffective over the years. The paper recommends the need for community-based approaches for the management and protection of ecologically sensitive areas. The community-based approach can be adopted through the integration of local knowledge in promoting ecological sustainability.

Fast Bayesian optimization of Needle-in-a-Haystack problems using zooming memory-based initialization (ZoMBI)

Needle-in-a-Haystack problems exist across a wide range of applications including rare disease prediction, ecological resource management, fraud detection, and material property optimization. A Needle-in-a-Haystack problem arises when there is an extreme imbalance of optimum conditions relative to the size of the dataset. However, current state-of-the-art optimization algorithms are not designed with the capabilities to find solutions to these challenging multidimensional Needle-in-a-Haystack problems, resulting in slow convergence or pigeonholing into a local minimum. In this paper, we present a Zooming Memory-Based Initialization algorithm, entitled ZoMBI, that builds on conventional Bayesian optimization principles to quickly and efficiently optimize Needle-in-a-Haystack problems in both less time and fewer experiments. The ZoMBI algorithm demonstrates compute time speed-ups of 400× compared to traditional Bayesian optimization as well as efficiently discovering optima in under 100 experiments that are up to 3× more highly optimized than those discovered by similar methods.

Insouciant, powerless or helpless: An assessment of the factors that contribute to the non-compliance with the regulations that protect ecologically sensitive areas in the Greater Kumasi Metropolis

The complexities involved in the urbanization process and its effect on environmental sustainability and city aesthetics has been extensively researched in the conventional literature. The rapid urban growth in countries in the global south coupled with weak development control has led to the encroachment of environmentally sensitive areas. Yet, little is known among scholars on whether regulatory agencies have given up on the encroachment of ecologically sensitive areas to continue or they are powerless. This paper through a qualitative research approach explores the factors that influence non-compliance with land use and ecosystem regulations from the perspective of relevant stakeholders. Through face-to-face interviews, 19 participants from eleven (11) regulatory institutions in the Greater Kumasi Metropolitan Area were interviewed. The findings of the study showed that several factors ranging from political, social, and economic adversely affect the ability of the regulatory agencies to effectively enforce the regulations that protect environmentally sensitive areas such as freshwater and wetlands. For example, in terms of political factors, the study showed that, the powerful nature of political actors in Ghana's democratic dispensation coupled with their continuous interference in the enforcement of regulations and the lack of sustained political will continue to threaten the sustainable management of environmentally sensitive areas. Socially and culturally, there is a shift from communal management of ecological resources to a formal public institutional management approach. Inadequate financial support, logistical constraints, and unavailability of technical experts and technology were economic factors that influence institutional non-compliance with land use and ecosystem regulations in Ghana The researchers conclude that the inability of the policymakers and the relevant authorities to address these political, social, and economic barriers confronting the regulatory agencies will continue to make them powerless when it comes to the enforcement of the regulations that protect environmentally sensitive areas.

Spatio-temporal variations in the ecological vulnerability of the Upper Mzingwane sub-catchment of Zimbabwe

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.

Assessing social-ecological fit of flood planning governance

Social-ecological fit demands that governance systems align with and function at the appropriate scales of social and ecological processes being governed. While multilevel social-ecological network analysis has been applied to assess fit in various contexts, it has not yet been applied to understand transboundary flood planning. We investigate the social-ecological fit of collaborative flood planning efforts in the St. John River Basin, located in New Brunswick and Quebec in Canada and Maine in the United States, focusing on two social-ecological fit challenges: shared management of ecological resources and management of interconnected resources. Our results displayed organizations have a tendency to collaborate with others located in the same sub-sub-basin and not with those working in different sub-sub-basins, indicating limited social-ecological fit of the collaboration network to flooding at the basin scale. Qualitative analysis identified collaboration provided increased knowledge and technical resources to engage in flood planning, but it was hindered by a lack of financial resources, time constraints, and a lack of shared commitment. Collaborative relationships among organizations working in different sub-sub-basins are essential for cohesive flood planning at the basin level, and in this case, there is potential for an increase in collaboration among ecological neighbors to govern for ecological connectivity.

Geospatial and Machine Learning Driven Air Pollution Modelling Using Vehicular Load and Climatic Variables in Agbarho, Delta State, Nigeria

Modeling air pollution concentration is a key aspect of environmental quality assessment and ecological resources management. In-situ measurements of three pollutants VOC, CO, and NO2 mainly determined by a combination of climatic variables and vehicle load were collected during field campaigns in three phases. Also, meteorological data (temperature, wind speed, and precipitation rate) was collected from an online weather forecasting platform. Results from the mean values computed and graphs plotted showed Five junction which has the highest concentration of vehicular movement (50 vehicles every two minutes) and human activities have the highest mean concentration of 980 ppm and a standard error of 40.60 ppm for VOC and 11.04 ppm for CO and a standard error value of 0.41 ppm, NO2 concentration of 0.35 ppm. Express junction which has the next highest vehicular concentration (47 vehicles every 2 minutes) has the next ranked mean concentration of 713.91 ppm and a standard error value of 59.56 ppm, CO value of 8.05 ppm, and NO2 value of 1.88 ppm. Ekwere road along was the next in pollution concentration ranking for VOC with 524.18 ppm and a standard error value of 20.64 ppm. it also had a high CO mean concentration of 9.20 and a standard error value of 0.69 ppm. which was higher than the express junction. Ughughelli road had a VOC mean concentration of 426 ppm, a standard error value of 31.53 ppm, a CO value of 4.14 ppm, and a standard error of 0.32 ppm. CDI and Agofure park which has similar vehicular loads had values of VOC at 323.05 ppm and 327.08 ppm respectively. They also had CO values of 4.03 ppm and 3.29 ppm. Ekwere less residential which has the lowest vehicular and human presence was the least polluted, with a VOC mean concentration of 193.42 ppm, CO mean concentration of 0.25 ppm, and NO2 concentration of 0.14 ppm.

Management of Ecological Resources for Sustainable Tourism: A Systematic Review on Community Participation in Ecotourism Literature

espanolLos esfuerzos para frenar los efectos devastadores causados ​​por el turismo de masas en todo el mundo han llevado a la formulacion de enfoques de turismo responsable o alternativo, como el ecoturismo, que tiene como objetivo reducir varios impactos negativos causados ​​por el turismo de masas en las comunidades de acogida y los destinos. El crecimiento del ecoturismo tambien se ha traducido en un numero creciente de literatura publicada sobre diversos aspectos del ecoturismo. Sin embargo, tambien ha resultado en la falta de consenso sobre los principios y objetivos del ecoturismo. Dado que la participacion comunitaria es uno de los aspectos importantes del ecoturismo, este documento tiene como objetivo analizar como se ve e implementa la participacion comunitaria en proyectos de ecoturismo con evidencias de la literatura ecoturistica. El metodo de analisis de contenido se utiliza para revisar la literatura en forma de articulos de revistas publicados entre 1990 y 2019. El documento elabora la evolucion y tendencias de la participacion comunitaria en proyectos de ecoturismo. Los principales hallazgos sugieren que solo algunos proyectos de ecoturismo se estan ejecutando con exito con la participacion total de las comunidades locales y el grado y el tipo de participacion comunitaria varia en cada proyecto de ecoturismo dependiendo de varios factores sociales, culturales y politicos. Tambien senala la presencia de opiniones contradictorias sobre su eficacia y aplicabilidad. EnglishEfforts to curb the devastating effects caused by mass tourism across the globe has led to the formulation of responsible or alternative tourism approaches such as ecotourism which aims in reducing various negative impacts caused by mass tourism on the host communities and the destinations. The growth of ecotourism has also resulted in the increasing number of literatures published on various aspects of ecotourism. However, it has also resulted in the lack of consensus over the principles and objectives of ecotourism. With community participation being one such important aspects of ecotourism, this paper aims to analyse how community participation is viewed and implemented in ecotourism projects with evidences from ecotourism literatures. Content analysis method is used to review literature in the form of journal articles published from 1990-2019. The paper elaborates the evolution and trends of community participation in ecotourism projects. The main findings suggest that only some ecotourism projects are successfully running with the full participation of local communities and the extent and type of community participation varies in each ecotourism projects depending on various social, cultural and political factors. It also points out the presence of contradicting views regarding its effectiveness and applicability. portuguesOs esforcos para conter os efeitos devastadores causados ​​pelo turismo de massa em todo o mundo levaram a formulacao de abordagens de turismo responsavel ou alternativo, como o ecoturismo, que visa reduzir varios impactos negativos causados ​​pelo turismo de massa nas comunidades anfitrias e nos destinos. O crescimento do ecoturismo tambem resultou no aumento do numero de publicacoes sobre varios aspectos do ecoturismo. No entanto, tambem resultou na falta de consenso sobre os principios e objetivos do ecoturismo. Com a participacao da comunidade sendo um dos aspectos importantes do ecoturismo, este artigo tem como objetivo analisar como a participacao da comunidade e vista e implementada em projetos de ecoturismo com evidencias da literatura sobre ecoturismo. O metodo de analise de conteudo e usado para revisar a literatura na forma de artigos de periodicos publicados de 1990-2019. O artigo elabora a evolucao e as tendencias da participacao da comunidade em projetos de ecoturismo. As principais conclusoes sugerem que apenas alguns projetos de ecoturismo estao funcionando com sucesso com a plena participacao das comunidades locais e a extensao e o tipo de participacao da comunidade variam em cada projeto de ecoturismo, dependendo de varios fatores sociais, culturais e politicos. Tambem aponta a presenca de visoes contraditorias quanto a sua eficacia e aplicabilidade.

Riparian community perceptions of the extent and potential impacts of watershed degradation in Lake Victoria Basin, Kenya

Lake Victoria basin is Kenya’s greatest natural resource supporting millions of livelihoods within the western part of the country. The basin is currently experiencing heavy watershed degradation from development activities and land use changes, and most rehabilitation and management interventions seem ineffective. Appreciation of the local communities’ perception is imperative for achieving the protection, preservation, and prudent management of ecological resources within the watershed. This research was conducted using structured questionnaires administered to 3109 household heads from the riparian communities, focused group discussions with 80 participants, and 20 key informant interviews to explore the perceptions and opinions of local communities on ongoing environmental degradation and its impacts on their well-being. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used for analysis. Results indicate that agriculture is widely practiced in the Lake Victoria watershed. The watershed residents practiced crop farming, livestock rearing, and mixed farming. The intensive nature of these agricultural practices had deleterious effects on the watershed in terms of erosion and sedimentation of streams, rivers, and Lake Victoria. The perceptions of the residents on water quality, pollution level, environmental conservation issues, and their implications on their daily lives were consistent with the previously conducted social-economic studies, biophysical research, and limnological assessments within the KLVB, an indication that they have a profound understanding of the workings of the various ecosystems in the watershed. The survey participants’ perceptions were found to be influenced by their educational level as well as their duration of residency within the basin. The study concluded that the residents possess a profound understanding of the various ecosystems, and recommends a participatory multi-sectoral community-based watershed management approach as perceived by the local riparian communities.

Management of Ecological Resources for Sustainable Tourism: A Systematic Review on Community Participation in Ecotourism Literature

Objectives of the study: This paper aims to analyse how community participation is viewed and implemented in ecotourism projects with evidence from ecotourism literature. The paper elaborates on the evolution and trends of community participation in ecotourism projects. Methodology: With the use of content analysis method, the study analyses literature in the form of journal articles. For the analysis, research articles published from 1990-2019 were collected from journal databases and search engines, including Scopus, Science Direct, Taylor and Francis, and Google Scholar. Originality/ Relevance: The present study intends to address the research gap in ecotourism literature that reviews and descriptively analyze the disseminated information on community participation Findings: The main findings suggest that only some ecotourism projects are successfully running with the full participation of local communities. The extent and type of community participation vary in each ecotourism project depending on social, cultural, and political factors. It also points out the presence of contradicting views regarding its effectiveness and applicability. Theoretical/ Methodological Contributions: Analysis of ecotourism literature on one of the key aspects of ecotourism is necessary to investigate and understand the patterns and themes of community participation and contributes on the directions for future research.

Mapping urban energy–water–land nexus within a multiscale economy: A case study of four megacities in China

Energy, water, and land (EWL) are typical elements in urban food-energy-water systems. With the expansive growth of urbanization and the economy, the demands for EWL keep increasing and pose significant challenges to urban sustainability. Previous studies mostly focused on one or two elements flows through sectoral approaches while ignoring the interconnectedness of food-energy-water subsystems and the complexity of an open urban system. Here, we adopted a nexus view to track the urban EWL flows not only within local but also across regional, national, and even global supply chains from the production- and consumption-based perspectives using the environmentally extended multiscale input-output model (EE-MSIO). The four Chinese municipalities (i.e., Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, and Chongqing), also known as megacities, were selected as our cases. Our results revealed that all four megacities were consumption-oriented cities for EWL resources. Nearly 72%–77%, 87%–92%, and 95%–99% of the consumption-based energy, water, and land flows were sourced from outside the geographical boundaries of Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, respectively. Domestic regions were the major suppliers for the four megacities. This analysis can help policy-makers to develop more effective and targeted strategies for complicated urban ecological resources management.

Nexus between indigenous ecological knowledge and ecosystem services: a socio-ecological analysis for sustainable ecosystem management.

The well-being of the human society cannot be ensured and sustainable unless the flow of Ecosystem Services (ESs) would be matching with their consistent demand. The consistent flow of ESs required sustainable management of ecological resources of the ecosystem. The management of ecosystem can be ensured with variety of approaches. Integration of indigenous ecological knowledge (IEK) in management prescription with the view that IEK-based extraction of ESs ensures removal of resources from the ecosystem within the limit thereby ensuring the sustainability of ecosystem. The present study is an evaluation to understand the nexus between ESs and IEK for sustainable environmental management. The focus of the study was a tribal dominated socio-ecological patch of Barind Region of Malda district, Eastern India. The assessment of ESs and IEK was based on the data collected from the randomly selected tribal households following the pre-tested questionnaire containing questions on ESs as per millennium ecosystem assessment. The data were analyzed following social preference approach, and statistical tests (Kruskal-Wallis and Mann-Whitney). General linear model (GLM) has also been used to examine the impact of socio-demographic attributes on the perceived valuation of ESs. The results revealed that the provisioning ESs (such as water, fuel wood, medical plants) were most preferred followed by cultural and regulating ESs by tribal. Differential importance of ESs was observed among tribal and accounted by gender, education as well as age of the tribe. A gap between the actual accessibility and evaluation of ESs by the tribal communities was also apparent. The socio-demographic attributes have an immense impact on the valuation of ESs and also governed based on the IEK. Various types of indigenous ecological belief systems were closely linked with conservation of ecosystem and sustainable supply of ESs. The present study can contribute to understand socio-ecological nexus with the lens of IEK in tribal dominated ecological landscapes for improved ecosystem and environmental management besides ensuring sustainability of flow of ESs.

Isolation and characterization of DNA barcodes from distinctive and rare terrestrial animals in China using universal COI and 16S primers

Background: Accurate taxonomic identification is the cornerstone for monitoring, conservation and management of ecological resources. China has the highest biodiversities and the richest species assemblages in the world, but is lacking in sufficient assessment to the abundant genetic variability. DNA barcoding is a proven tool employing sequence information for rapid and unambiguous species delineation. However, the ability of barcodes to distinguish species that are archaic and distinctive evolutionary lines remains largely untested.Methods: In order to investigate the resources of terrestrial animals in China, regions from mitochondrial COI and 16S are barcoded for 395 specimens belonging to 54 selected species, many of which are indigenous representatives in danger. High success rate of PCR amplification is achieved by using universal COI and 16S primers with many numts pseudogenes co-amplified from mammalian samples.Results: Application of barcodes to flag species is generally straightforward since no COI or 16S haplotypes are shared between closely related species. Barcoding gap, species resolution and phylogenetic relationships relying on our barcode libraries are further compared using distance and tree based approaches.Conclusion: Results show that the discriminatory power of the two barcode markers could differentiate on a case-by-case basis, and also suggest a careful consideration of the nuclear numts for barcoding studies as they might provide a new understanding for evolution.

Mountain-to-sea ecological-resource management: Forested watersheds, coastal aquifers, and groundwater dependent ecosystems

Improving the understanding of connections spanning from mountain to sea and integrating those connections into decision models have been increasingly recognized as key to effective coastal resource management. In this paper, we aim to improve our understanding of the relative importance of linkages between a forested watershed, a coastal groundwater aquifer, and a nearshore marine groundwater-dependent ecosystem (GDE) using a dynamic groundwater optimization framework and simple ecosystem equations. Data from the Kīholo aquifer on the Kona Coast of Hawai‘i Island are used to numerically illustrate optimal joint management strategies and test the sensitivity of those strategies to variations in physical and behavioral parameter values. We find that for a plausible range of watershed management costs, protecting part of the recharge capture area is always optimal. Without watershed protection, maintaining a safe minimum standard growth rate for a GDE-dependent marine indicator species, reduces net present value non-trivially, but optimal investment in watershed conservation offsets that potential reduction by 75 %. In general, we find that optimal watershed management and groundwater pumping are most sensitive to changes in water demand growth and parameters that describe nearshore salinity.

Changes in local knowledge and its impacts on ecological resources management: The case of flyingfish culture of the Tao in Taiwan

The use of local ecological knowledge (LEK) has been advocated for coastal ecological and environmental resource management (EERM), noting that successful management on the resources has been implemented for centuries by many coastal societies based on their LEK. However, changes in LEK are observed in many instances worldwide and have caused impacts on the EERM. This study reports industry-, government- and culture-driven changes of a LEK and the impacts of the changes on the environment. Taking the Tao of Taiwan's Orchid Island as an example, the connotations and trend of their flyingfish culture are analyzed. Specifically, the five conditions for achieving effective EERM established by Dietz et al. (2003) are used as the theoretical basis to analyze the impact of LEK changes on environmental change. The findings indicated that this culture complies with the conditions proposed and proved that application of the flyingfish culture to the management of Orchid Island's marine and fishery resources has its theoretical basis and advantages. However, the flyingfish culture was found to be facing major changes which has violated the conditions for effective management of shared resources. Various external factors have contributed to the changes in the flyingfish culture. These include the impacts of inappropriate government policies, modern science and technology, education, and the market economy. Especially, inappropriate policies have reduced the integrity of the flyingfish cultural landscape, incentivized the use of motorized boats, commodified the flyingfish, and expanded the market for related products. Some suggestions for managing the changes to the culture are proposed.

DYNAMIC EVALUATION AND SPATIAL MAPPING OF WETLAND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES VALUE - A CASE STUDY ON NANJING JIANGBEI NEW AREA

Based on the interpretation of LUCC data, through the correction of basic equivalent value and value equivalent coefficient, this study sets up the evaluation system based on value transfer method, and realizes the dynamic evaluation of wetland ecosystem services value in Jiangbei New Area, i.e., the value of wetland ecosystem services in Jiangbei New Area was RMB 6,060.77 million, RMB 9,244.62 million and RMB 7709.68 million respectively in 2002, 2009 and 2017, which show obvious fluctuation characteristics, and regulation services was the core value, among which flood and waterlogging regulation service value accounted for the highest. At the same time, this study introduces ESCI and ESSI analysis to quantitatively express the change in the evaluation data of wetland ecosystem services value from 2009 to 2017 in the study area with special raster data and realizes the visualization of value change with spatial mapping so as to compare and analyze the gain and loss of ecological function and effectively identify the main loss areas of wetland ecological function. The research methods used in this study are suitable for the research on wetland ecosystem of urban spatial scale, and can be relatively convenient for dynamic evaluation of wetland ecosystem services value and its changes, so as to effectively support urban ecological resource management decision-making.

Ecology of China's pilot cities for creating healthy aquatic communities: heterogeneity, niches and environmental factors

Globally, climate change and human activities have greatly stressed the health of water ecological communities (WECs) in cities, and WEC restoration is therefore a critical issue, especially for developing cities. To restore healthy WECs and support humans into the future, the Ministry of Water Resources, China, proposed a project to build cities with healthy WECs. Jinan was designated the first pilot city for this project. The exploration of methodologies on WEC restoration in pilot cities is important because it can provide reliable theoretical evidence and methodological references for researchers and managers, and serve as an important decision-making basis for ecological resources management and remediation of fresh waters. In this Research Front, we have brought together studies on aquatic ecosystems of the first pilot cities project to build healthy WECs in China, including studies on the health, temporospatial heterogeneity and niches of WECs, as well as environmental factors. These studies can significantly increase our understanding of the ecology of the aquatic systems in China’s pilot cities. It is anticipated that this ecosystem knowledge will help assess the effects of climate- and human-induced stress changes, and form the basis for making aquatic ecosystem protection and restoration decisions across the globe.

Land degradation continues despite greening in the Nigeria-Niger border region

Recent satellite observations of the West African Sahel have shown an increase in vegetation greenness. However, many of these studies have little or no field validation to ascertain the actual environmental conditions on the ground. Here, we assess the condition of woody vegetation species in relation to land degradation processes and examine the conditions and patterns of their changes in the Nigeria-Niger border region in West Africa. Indigenous knowledge, a botanical survey, field observations and trend analyses were used to evaluate ecological changes in the area. A survey of 70 respondents which were selected using purposive sampling is presented i.e. 10 respondents each from seven villages, and focus group interviews were conducted to ascertain the condition of woody vegetation changes. The results show that despite the overall increase of vegetation greeness observed from remote sensing, the diversity and density of indigenous woody vegetation species is declining throughout the area. Nearly 80% of all the indigenous plant species of the region such as Borassus aethiopum, Ficus thonningii and Ficus thonningii have either completely disappeared or migrated southward where climatic conditions are more favourable. Therefore, the evidence suggests that land degradation is ongoing in the region and that local knowledge should be integrated in ecological resource management, especially at the local level, where locals rely on woody trees for food, income and fuelwood, so that plant species at risk of extinction can be preserved and where possible regenerated for conservation and sustainable use of the woody plant species in the region.