Restoration Policies Research Articles

Coastal Wetland Restoration Strategies Based on Ecosystem Service Changes: A Case Study of the South Bank of Hangzhou Bay

A unique variety of wetlands known as coastal wetlands that connect terrestrial and marine ecosystems is crucial to reducing and adapting to climate change as well as the advancement of human culture. However, the coastal wetland ecosystem is currently in danger as a result of the increasing intensity of human activity, and wetland restoration and reconstruction have garnered a lot of interest. The differentiated ecological restoration strategies based on ecosystem service change analysis can provide a reference for the effective management and sustainability of coastal wetland ecosystems. The InVEST model and ArcGIS were used to analyze the spatiotemporal changes in ecosystem services before and after the implementation of coastal wetland restoration policies based on remote sensing image data, meteorological and soil data, etc. The ecological restoration pattern of coastal wetlands was divided, and the corresponding ecological restoration strategies were proposed in this study. The following are the results: (1) there are still many wetlands that have been converted to non-wetlands following the implementation of the wetland restoration policy, and the ecosystem services as a whole exhibit a rising and then falling trend, with a rise from 2005 to 2015, a fall in 2015 due to the creation of Hangzhou Bay New District, and a slight improvement to 2020. Among them, the water yield increased continuously, the carbon storage fluctuated, and the habitat quality did not improve significantly. (2) The hot spots of ecosystem services were concentrated in the south and southeast of the study area, with no obvious cold spots. (3) By comprehensively analyzing the changes and spatial patterns of ecosystem services, the coastal wetlands on the south bank of Hangzhou Bay were divided into an ecological conservation zone, a green development zone, and an ecological restoration zone at the township level, and corresponding optimization strategies were proposed. The results can provide a reference for the fine-grained and differentiated management of regional ecosystem services.

Green growth: The impact of urban forest construction on economic growth in China

This paper examines whether and how China's National Forest City (NFC) policy affects economic growth through ecosystem services restoration. Although extensive research has examined the impact of pollutant-oriented environmental regulation, the understanding of how ecosystem services restoration policies affect economic growth remains limited. Using a Chinese county panel from 1999 to 2019, we found that the NFC significantly promotes economic growth. The NFC improves environmental conditions by providing ecosystem services to increase green vegetation, purify air quality, and mitigate heat island effects. The environmental improvement-induced total factor productivity and human capital enhancement are the mechanisms through which the NFC promotes economic growth, which is enhanced with improvements in the urban ecosystem. Furthermore, the economic impact of NFC is heterogeneous in industry departments and regions. The urban ecosystem services restoration policy is a practical approach to achieving simultaneous economic growth and ecological protection.

Impact of land tenure on deforestation control and forest restoration in Brazilian Amazonia

This study examines how land tenure constrains Brazil’s ability to meet its deforestation control and forest restoration goals in its Amazonia biome. Our findings are based on an updated assessment of land tenure and land use in the region. Between 2019 and 2021, 44% of deforestation in Amazonia occurred in private lands, while forest removal in settlements ranged from 31% to 27% of the total. Deforestation in undesignated public lands increased from 11% in 2008 to 18% in 2021. Deforestation is highly concentrated, with 1% of properties accounting for 82.5% of forest cuts in 2021. In Amazonia, there is considerable non-compliance with the legal reserve provisions set by Brazil’s Forest Code. Legal reserve deficits in private lands sum up to 18.17 Mha (million hectares), compared with 12.49 Mha of legal reserve surpluses. Even if all forest surpluses are offered in the forest credits market set in the Forest Code, farmers still need to restore 5.67 Mha to comply with the law. Large-scale cattle ranchers have a legal reserve deficit of 10.35 Mha (34% of their area). Most crop farming occurs in medium and large properties (4.63 Mha) with a large proportion of legal reserve deficits (45%). Given the political power and financial resources of large ranchers and crop producers, Brazil faces major challenges in inducing these farmers to meet their legal obligations. Therefore, Brazil needs to combine robust command-and-control strategies with market-based policies to achieve its deforestation and forest restoration goals. The government should tailor forest protection and restoration policies to the needs of different landowners, considering their land use practices, technical capacity, and financial resources.

Current policies are insufficient to protect or restore Brazil’s cost-effective conservation priority zones

In Brazil, conservation priority zones, in spite of their key role in preserving natural vegetation and its environmental resources are frequently located outside the country’s public network of protected areas (PAs). Here we present the first study on land-use impacts inside Brazil’s unprotected (i.e. outside PAs) Cost-Effective conservation priority Zones (CEZs), for the period 2020–2050. CEZs are conservation priority zones that had experienced low levels of human impact in 2020. In this study, we consider various governance scenarios, including different deforestation control and native vegetation restoration policies. To this end, a land-use change model is combined with a downscaling method to generate natural vegetation cover projections at a 0.01 resolution. Results, which include the effects of climate change on the expansion of the Brazilian agriculture, project native vegetation losses (through deforestation) or gains (through restoration) inside unprotected CEZs. If the current pattern of disregard for the environment persists, our results indicate that a large share of the native vegetation inside Brazil’s CEZs is likely to disappear, with negative impacts on biodiversity preservation, green-house gas emissions and ecosystem services in general. Moreover, even if fully implemented and enforced, Brazil’s current Forest Code is insufficient to adequately protect CEZs from anthropization, especially in the Cerrado biome. We expect that this study can help improving the conservation and restoration of CEZs in Brazil.

Prioritize grassland restoration to bend the curve of biodiversity loss

In times of unprecedented climate change, ecological restoration efforts have a strong focus on forests for the purpose of carbon sequestration. Grasslands, in contrast, remain relatively neglected in global restoration policies. Concurrently, we are in the midst of a biodiversity crisis—it is estimated that 1 million species are globally threatened with extinction. Here, we present analyses from central Europe and southern Brazil that show that the majority of our endangered plant species are in fact found in open ecosystems. Using Germany as an example, we show that we could reduce plant extinction risk by up to 82% if we restore open, grassy ecosystems. This also holds true for southern Brazil, where grassland species constitute the single largest share of endangered species, but where grassy ecosystems continue to be systematically neglected by restoration policies. We further expand on our biodiversity argument to include the role that grassland restoration can play in mitigating climate change. We posit that ramping up grassland restoration efforts may not only be our best bet to bend the curve of biodiversity loss, but it will also make a critical contribution to the resilience of ecosystems in the dynamic decades to come. It is time for grassland restoration to receive higher priority in global restoration efforts and policy.

Exploring the changes and driving mechanisms in the production-transport-consumption process of ecosystem services flow in the Yellow River Basin under the background of policy changes

Analyzing the spatiotemporal changes of the ecosystem services flow and the impact mechanism is of great significance for achieving human well-being. It is challenged by regional differences in resource utilization pattern and intensity and the complex mechanisms of action between ecosystem services supply and demand. This study used InVEST model and local indicator of spatial association to delineate ecosystem services supply and demand areas. This study used comparative ecological radiation force to characterize the flow of carbon sequestration from supply to demand areas, and its changes were analyzed. The influence of different factors on the carbon sequestration supply, demand and flow was analyzed using correlation analysis. The results showed that there were significant spatial differences in the supply–demand situation of the Yellow River Basin. In this study, 7 supply areas and 29 demand areas were delineated. Many ecological restoration policies implemented from 2000 to 2020 improved the environmental situation and enhanced carbon sequestration flow. Carbon sequestration flow was more sensitive to human activities. The impact of the same intensity of human activity on the supply potential of carbon sequestration was stronger than the supply capacity. This study can provide a reference for regional ecosystem management.

Influence of vegetation change on water consumption in watersheds

AbstractEvapotranspiration is one of the hot issues of ecological hydrology. However, few studies have analysed the impact of vegetation changes on water consumption from the perspective of natural and artificial vegetation. Taking the Ziya River Basin as an example, the daily meteorological data from 2001 to 2015 were used to calculate the water consumption of vegetation based on the Penman–Monteith model. The results showed that the vegetation coverage increased. The total water consumption increased from 2001 (2.60 × 1,010 m3) to 2005 (2.65 × 1,010 m3) and decreased from 2005 (2.65 × 1,010 m3) to 2015 (2.40 × 1,010 m3). The water consumption per unit area in descending order was mixed forests (660 mm, annual average), croplands (640 mm), closed shrublands (581 mm), deciduous broadleaf forests (528 mm), grasslands (514 mm), savannas (459 mm), and woody savannas (454 mm). Finally, the regression equation between vegetation coverage change and water consumption was y = 0.377x + 84.516, which showed that there was a proportional relationship. Therefore, attention should be given to balancing local water allocation during vegetation restoration. The results can provide a reference for vegetation restoration policies

Ecosystem changes revealed by land cover in the three-river headwaters region of Qinghai, China (1990–2015)

The Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR) of Qinghai Province, in the Tibetan Plateau of China, is the main source of the Yangtze, Yellow, and Lancang rivers, and is very significant to the security of freshwater resources for China and southeastern Asia. It is a critical ecological region of China for its ecological functions, and has been changed or even degraded in recent decades owing to climate change and human pressure. To effectively protect and restore the degraded ecosystems, the Chinese government initiated a series of ecological conservation projects in TRHR. It is essential to quantitatively assess ecosystem changes and their relationship to driving factors for in-depth understanding of long-term changes of ecosystems and effects of ecological restoration policies and offer practical insights for ecological restoration. Here, land cover data has been interpreted with the series data of Landsat during 1990–2015. The patterns of different ecosystems and their developing process have been derived from land cover change. The results show that ecosystem types in TRHR include forest, grassland, cropland, wetland, artificial surface and barren land, accounting for 4.51%, 70.80%, 0.15%, 9.47%, 0.16% and 14.90%, respectively. Barren land converted to wetland was the significant ecosystem change from 1990 to 2015. Increases in temperature and precipitation and implementation of ecological rehabilitation helped maintain relatively stable ecosystem patterns. It is necessary to continue ecological projects to improve and/or maintain the ecosystems in TRHR because there is still a risk of land degradation under increasing climate change and human activity.

Spaceborne LiDAR reveals the effectiveness of European Protected Areas in conserving forest height and vertical structure

The effectiveness of Protected Areas in conserving forest ecosystems has been examined at the continental scale using area-based habitat parameters, but knowledge of the three-dimensional structure of forest habitats is still lacking. Here, we assess the effectiveness of European Protected Areas in conserving the vertical structure of forests by analysing more than 30 million records from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI), a spaceborne LiDAR (Light Detection And Ranging) mission. We compare a suite of indicators of the vertical structure of forests inside and outside nearly 10,000 protected areas. We find that European forests are on average 2 m taller and vertically more complex in protected areas than in nearby unprotected areas, albeit with some regional differences. At the same time, forests outside protected areas show greater variations in canopy height than inside, probably as a result of past and current forest management operations. Our findings highlight the positive imprint of environmental policies on forest structure across Europe and underscore how spaceborne LiDAR enables the large-scale monitoring of forest vertical structural attributes that are key to conservation and restoration policies.

PERSEPSI MASYARAKAT DESA PEDULI GAMBUT PADA KEBIJAKAN RESTORASI LAHAN GAMBUT DI KABUPATEN KUBU RAYA

During this time peatlands were discussed related to forest and land fires so that presidential regulation No. 1 of 2016 concerning peat restoration agency (BRG) was issued. The initial study of BRG on the development status of villages in the bergambut area shows that most villages are in the status of villages are very left behind or villages are left behind, so the peat care village (DPG) approach is used. The purpose of the study is: analyzing the perception of peat care village communities in Kubu Raya Regency on peatland restoration policies and analyzing factors that affect community participation in BRG programs and activities. The research location is Kubu Raya Regency. The population of this study is a community in DPG Sungai Nipah. The number of samples as many as 32 respondents and sampling was done using snowballing sampling. The variables studied are: characteristics of respondents, characteristics of peatland restoration policies, community perceptions, opinions/responses that are views given by the community on peat restoration policies, knowledge, and attitudes. To analyze factors that affect community participation in BRG programs and activities are used Logit Regression. Overall, respondents' attitudes towards BRG programs and activities were in the positive to very positive range. The variables of gender, perception and variable experience of trying to exert a significant partial influence on participation in BRG programs and activities. To improve the positive perception of the community, there is a need for assistance efforts from all community institutions in rural areas. Paludiculture cultivation techniques and using creative economic development strategies on peat swamplands with Green Circular Economy Consep can be an alternative to BRG programs and activities.

Cultural Consensus Analysis of Stakeholder Beliefs toward Coastal Restoration in Southeast Louisiana

Coastal land loss is a singular threat to the people, economies, and biodiversity of Louisiana. Though opinion polls indicate broad support for restoration efforts, aspects of current plans remain contentious for some stakeholders. We used cultural consensuses analysis (CCA) to go beneath the surface of restoration policy debates and identify shared beliefs about coastal land loss and restoration efforts among select occupational stakeholder groups in Louisiana. Three latent consensus groups, spanning stakeholder groupings, were identified. Data indicate broad consensus on core beliefs related to the peril of land loss and the urgency of action. And though staunch disagreement exists, there is some evidence that differences are not wholly intractable. These findings highlight a need to better understand the nature of beliefs and the frames that motivate those beliefs in policy debates and offer CCA as avenue for doing so.

Influence of foliar traits, watershed physiography, and nutrient subsidies on stream water quality in the upper midwestern United States

The relationship between nutrient cycling and water quality in mixed-use ecosystems is driven by interactions among biotic and abiotic processes. However, the underlying processes cannot always be directly observed or modeled at broad spatial scales. Numerous empirical studies have employed land use patterns, variations in watershed physiography or disturbance regimes to characterize nutrient export from mixed-use watersheds, but simultaneously disentangling the effects of such factors remains challenging and few models directly incorporate vegetation biochemistry. Here we use structural equation models (SEMs) to assess the relative influence of foliar chemical traits (derived from imaging spectroscopy), watershed physiography, and human land use on the water quality (summer baseflow nitrate-N and soluble reactive phosphorus concentration) in watersheds across the Upper Midwestern United States. We use an SEM to link water quality (stream nitrate-nitrogen and dissolved phosphorus) to foliar retention (AVIRIS-Classic derived foliar traits related to recalcitrance), watershed retention (wetland proportion, MODIS Tasseled Cap Wetness), runoff (agricultural and urban land use), and watershed leakiness (AVIRIS-Classic foliar nitrogen, nitrogen deposition). The SEMs confirmed that variables associated with foliar retention derived from imaging spectroscopy are negatively related to watershed leakiness (standardized path coefficient = −0.892) and positively to watershed retention (standardized path coefficient = 0.705), with features related to watershed retention and runoff exerting the strongest controls on water quality (standardized path coefficients of −0.270 and 0.331 respectively). Comparing forested and agricultural watersheds, we found significantly increased importance of foliar retention to watershed leakiness in forests compared to agriculture (standardized coefficients of −1.004 and −0.764 respectively), with measures of watershed retention more important to runoff and water quality in agricultural watersheds. The results illustrate the capacity of imaging spectroscopy to provide measures of foliar traits that influence nutrient cycling in watersheds. Ultimately, the results may help focus development and restoration policies towards building more resilient landscapes that take into consideration associations among functional traits of vegetation, physiography and climate.

Strategy Adjustments for FMCG Supply Chains in Bangladesh to Counter Future Pandemic Disruptions

The Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry in Bangladesh was not ready to resist the repercussions of the worldwide pandemic recently. The pandemic caused the supply chain to become disorganized. Companies must make both micro and macro adjustments to their strategy in order to adapt to the new norm and be ready for future occurrences of this nature. This research seeks to give a paradigm for creating new pandemic defense tactics. This study also examines the facets of imminent supply chain collapse and alters the existing characteristics to overcome the shortcomings. The objective is to build comprehensive guidelines that an FMCG can use to avoid the possibility of such a scenario. The study incorporates short and long-term supply chain restoration policies for material sourcing, manufacturing, and distribution. The process entails identifying the fundamental drivers that are typically affected by the disruption. The short-term proposals serve as corrective agents committed to fighting the interruption as soon as it arises. Long-term ideas, on the other hand, are a type of preventive measure that require more time to implement. However, they focus on building barriers around the brand so that external disruptions cannot impact it in the long run. Among other advantages, these recommendations will result in improved forecasting, responsiveness, real-time monitoring, and cost-effectiveness. In addition, the proposed philosophies were formulated into a Mixed-Integer Linear Programming (MILP) model. The focus of the paper is the formulation of supply chain equations involving ordering cost, holding cost, inbound and outbound transportation cost, downtime, inventory level, response time, and other pertinent aspects. It also houses pandemic and non-pandemic coordination initiatives across the organization. The incurred costs were determined using a formulated objective function and constraints. The presented model demonstrated a 36% cost reduction while maintaining supply chain integrity during disruptions using a deterministic data set. Finally, 25 industry experts were interviewed in two rounds utilizing both structured and unstructured patterns to determine the KPI scores achieved due to the execution of the proposals. The Key Performance Indicators (KPI) were evaluated following a comparison of the costs of conventional and proposed methods. According to the study, the KPI scores for procurement, manufacturing, and distribution were 90%, 86.67%, and 80.30% correspondingly. The models are 85.66% viable overall.

Dynamic Response and Adaptation of Grassland Ecosystems in the Three-River Headwaters Region under Changing Environment: A Review.

The Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR) is crucial to the sustainable development of China and Southeast Asia. The sustainability of grassland ecosystems in the region has been seriously challenged in recent years. This paper reviewed the changes in the grasslands of the TRHR and their responses to climate change and human activities. The review showed that accurate monitoring of grassland ecological information is the basis for effective management. Although alpine grassland coverage and the above-ground biomass of the alpine grassland have generally increased in the region over the past 30 years, the degradation has not been fundamentally curbed. Grassland degradation substantially reduced topsoil nutrients and affected their distribution, deteriorated soil moisture conditions, and aggravated soil erosion. Grassland degradation led to loss of productivity and species diversity, and this is already harming the well-being of pastoralists. The "warm and wet" trend of the climate promoted the restoration of alpine grasslands, but widespread overgrazing is considered as one of the main reasons for grassland degradation, and related differences still exist. Since 2000, the grassland restoration policy has achieved fruitful results, but the formulation of the policy still needs to integrate market logic effectively and strengthen the understanding of the relationship between ecological protection and cultural protection. In addition, appropriate human intervention mechanisms are urgently needed due to the uncertainty of future climate change. For mildly and moderately degraded grassland, traditional methods are applicable. However, the severely degraded "black soil beach" needs to be restored by artificial seeding, and the stability of the plant-soil system needs to be emphasized to establish a relatively stable community to prevent secondary degradation.

Assessing the hydrological controls on spatio-temporal patterns of streamwater in glacierized mountainous Upper Indus River Basin (UIRB), western Himalayas

The meltwater generated from the Himalayan mountain system is an important source of freshwater sustaining hydrological, ecological and biological activities in upstream and downstream regions. Under a warming climate, the cryospheric cover is shrinking, altering the availability of freshwater to ∼53 million people living in the upper and lower parts of the Himalayas. Therefore, it becomes essential to understand the hydrological processes and regimes influencing the regional hydrological cycle for proper water resource management and ecosystem restoration policies. In this study, we measured the patterns of isotopic values (δ18O and δ2H) of river/streamwater to assess the factors controlling its spatio-temporal variability and mean residence time in glacierized mountainous Upper Indus River Basin, India to better understand the significant hydrological processes and controls. The isotopic values of stream/river water exhibited significant spatio-temporal variance ascribed to changing physiographic, hydrometeorological, and climatic factors persisting at the local and regional scales. The slope and intercept of the River Water Line [δ2H = (8.3 ± 0.2) × δ18O + (15 ± 3.9, p > 0.001)] is higher than global meteoric water line and local meteoric water line of the UIRB, India. The seasonality in source water ratios suggested that stream water is more biased to winter precipitation. The estimated mean residence time in six sub-basins ranged from 188 ± 17 to 387 ± 38 days with the longest and shortest mean residence time observed in Indus (387 ± 38 days) and Tangtse (188 ± 17 days) sub-basins. The polynomial (second‐order) relationship suggests that the variability in the paleo-precipitation δ18O values reflect a change in the moisture source and/or upliftment along airmass transport pathways. Our study highlighted the significance of physiographical and hydrometeorological processes in controlling the spatio-temporal variance of stable isotopic composition of river/stream water bodies. The current research work also improved the knowledge and understanding of the local and regional hydrological processes.

Runoff and Infiltration responses of revegetated slopes to clipping management on the northern Loess Plateau

Large-scale vegetation restoration can reduce local watershed water yield, limit vegetation establishment and subsequent growth, and influence regional ecosystem functions. Clipping management by reducing aboveground parts of grassland was gradually recommended and adopted in Grain-for-Green project management to offset these additional issues. Thus, scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of clipping management on infiltration and runoff processes is necessary for maintaining the stability of the surface water system and the sustainability of vegetation restoration in semi-arid regions. A field simulated rainfall experiment was conducted with four managed clipping grasslands (mainly bunge needlegrass and Stipa grandis), including no clipping, light clipping, heavy clipping, and complete clipping under three slope gradients (10, 20, and 30°) and three rainfall intensities (60, 90, and 120 mm/h) to explore the mechanism of runoff and infiltration responses to clipping using structural equation modeling and variation partitioning based on an SCS-CN model. The results showed the runoff coefficient of the light clipping, heavy clipping, and complete clipping plots were 1.33, 2.22, and 4.22 times that of the no clipping plot. The light clipping, heavy clipping, and complete clipping plots decreased the infiltration coefficients by 0%, 5%, and 26% relative to the no clipping plot. Rainfall intensity dominated runoff and infiltration amounts, and clipping intensity's total effect was stronger than slope gradient. Clipping intensity and slope gradient were more influential on runoff with increasing rainfall intensity. The mutual inhibition effect was between clipping intensity and slope gradient on runoff. In order to maintain the sustainability of restoration, a 25–50% vegetation coverage after clipping maximizes the benefits of increasing runoff and maintaining enough soil water supply that prevents possible soil drought. We propose that future vegetation restoration policies should evaluate the appropriate clipping intensity; meanwhile, local physiographic and climate conditions should be considered. These findings may offer guidance for the development of measures for runoff regulation and ecosystem functions of the watershed during vegetation restoration on the northern Loess Plateau.

Habitat quality evolution characteristics and multi-scenario prediction in Shenzhen based on PLUS and InVEST models

Based on the PLUS model, research proposed a method to adjust the probability of land use transition to reduce the calculation error of the number of pixels. The refined algorithm is applied to simulate Shenzhen land use situation in 2030 under a progressive scenario using three periods of Shenzhen land use data in 2000, 2010 and 2020. Then, InVEST model was employed to evaluate the distribution situation and future trends of habitat quality in Shenzhen during the study period. Following are the conclusions: 1) The construction land in Shenzhen expanded rapidly and the ecological land gradually shrank during the research period. The proportion of artificial surface area increased by about 45.4% (304.98 km2) within 20 years. 2) By simulating the land use situation of Shenzhen in 2030, the results revealed that the land use change of Shenzhen in the future is mainly concentrated in the central and western regions. 3) The overall average habitat quality of Shenzhen was at a medium level, but the habitat quality showed a continuous degradation trend in each year throughout the study period. Spatially, the habitat quality degradation are mainly concentrated in Shenzhen’s central and western region. 4) Under the natural development scenario, Shenzhen’s habitat quality would experience a sharp decline by 2030. The habitat quality of the conservation area is guaranteed to a certain degree, but the artificial surface expansion outside the area will still affect the habitat quality in the boundary constraint scenario; Only in scenario of ecological priority, the habitat quality of Shenzhen has been restored and improved to a large extent. 5) In order to slow down the degradation trend and improve the regional ecological environment. It is necessary not only to strictly implement various protection boundaries delineated in the context of Territorial Spatial Planning, but also to implement the policy of “Clear waters and green mountains are as good as mountains of gold and silver” in the process of urban development. Government should reasonably control the scale of cities, optimize the ecological compensation mechanism, and implement ecological restoration policies such as returning farmland to forests and returning farmland to grassland.

Cross-sector challenges in Ethiopian forest and landscape restoration governance

The federal government of Ethiopia set a national target to restore 15 million hectares of degraded and deforested lands by 2030. While forest and landscape restoration governance is intended to be a multi-actor process through which various land uses are coordinated, in practice it turns out to be difficult to bring specialised government agencies together to achieve restoration targets. We conducted a policy document review, 56 semi-structured interviews and 14 focus group discussions to understand the different challenges that exist in the governance of forest and landscape restoration in Ethiopia. We found three cross-sector challenges that influence the way in which national restoration targets are implemented at the local level in Ethiopia: 1) food security dominates the restoration policy frame and budgetary allocation at the expense of alternative restoration pathways that foster forestry livelihoods and biodiversity benefits, 2) agricultural and environmental policy objectives and targets, and restoration mandates at the sub-national level are incoherent, and 3) a siloed land use planning instrument makes it difficult to negotiate trade-offs and find synergies between sectoral policy objectives. Our results point out the need for an integrated land use planning instrument to achieve a wider range of restoration benefits. Given existing power imbalances between land-based sectors, we posit that an independent integrated land use planning authority that can draw on hierarchical authority is required to better balance different sector interests and different forms of conservation and restoration.

A Review of Research on Forest Ecosystem Quality Assessment and Prediction Methods

The accurate assessment and prediction of forest ecosystem quality is an important basis for evaluating the effectiveness of regional ecological protection and restoration, establishing a positive feedback mechanism for forest quality improvement and restoration policies, and promoting the construction of an ecological civilization in China. Based on the existing studies at home and abroad, this paper mainly analyzes and summarizes the connotation of forest ecosystem quality, assessment index systems, assessment and prediction methods, and outlooks on the existing problems of imperfect forest ecological quality assessment index systems, preliminary assessment and prediction capabilities, and unknown dynamic responses of forest ecological quality to climate change, etc. Efforts should be made to develop a scientific and standardized assessment index system, produce high-quality forest ecological data products, develop localization of assessment model parameters, and explore forest quality–climate change response mechanisms to provide references for in-depth research to realize the transformation of forest ecosystem quality assessments from historical and status quo assessments to future predictions, and to support the construction of a national ecological civilization.

Novel operational index reveals rapid recovery of genetic connectivity in freshwater fish species after riverine restoration

AbstractHyperfragmentation of rivers by anthropogenic barriers is a major threat to biodiversity. Restoration policies are being adopted worldwide to mitigate these impacts, particularly those on fish connectivity. We assessed the utility of a novel genetic index of fragmentation, the FINDEX, by monitoring real‐time responses of two fish genera to restoration operations at 11 weirs in France. The FINDEX outperformed traditional genetic tools, detecting barriers more efficiently, and thereby improving estimates of recovery of connectivity following restoration. Most weirs had significant impacts on connectivity before restoration, especially the highest and steepest ones. Restoration actions systematically improved genetic connectivity, sometimes completely and in just a few months, with an overall halving of fragmentation levels. Our study demonstrates that current restoration policies are recovering genetic connectivity efficiently, and that practitioners may benefit from the FINDEX as a new operational tool to assess barrier strength for nonmigratory organisms and to plan and monitor riverine restoration.