Comprehensive Observation and Simulation of Natural Resources in Changing Environment

A special issue of Land (ISSN 2073-445X). This special issue belongs to the section "Land Environmental and Policy Impact Assessment".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (31 October 2023) | Viewed by 6965

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100055, China
Interests: natural resource science; ecological geology

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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Interests: land-use change; soil carbon cycle in dryland; land management

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Guest Editor
State Key Laboratory of Soil Erosion and Dryland Farming on the Loess Plateau, Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, China
Interests: global change; soil ecology

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Guest Editor
Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
Interests: resource management; resource assessment; resource policy

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Natural resources are the important material basis for human production and development. Tracking research on the exploitation and utilization of natural resources and the impacts on the environment has long been of great interest. Nevertheless, studying the evolution of natural resources and their interactions with ecosystems and environments from a systems perspective has not been highlighted in recent research. Many scientific issues require in-depth research, such as the impact of rapidly changing natural and social environments on the evolution of natural resource systems and the pattern of supply and demand, key technologies for the comprehensive observation and prediction of natural resources, and the mechanism of resources–ecology–environment coupling. Therefore, studying the Earth as a complex system with the interaction of various circles or subsystems is a necessary approach to solve global resource, ecological and environmental problems as a whole.

For this Special Issue, we mainly focus on theoretical methods, key technologies and practical application research on the comprehensive observation and simulation of natural resources in changing environments.

We are aiming at the following:

  • Understanding  the evolution law of natural resources;
  • Exploring the coupling mechanism between various elements of natural resources and the ecological environment;
  • Evaluating the degree of coordination between natural resources and the ecological environment ;
  • Predicting the development trends of natural resources and the ecological environment.

Topics of interest include but are not limited to:

  • Evolution characteristics of natural resources in a changing environment;
  • Coupling mechanism of ecology and environment in the context of natural resource exploitation and utilization;
  • Comprehensive observation technology and prediction/evaluation of natural resources;
  • Natural resource management and adaptive strategies.

Proposed titles and abstracts (250 words) can be submitted to the Guest Editors by 1 May 2023 at [email protected] for possible feedback, if prospective authors want some feedback before preparing their manuscripts.

Dr. Xiaohuang Liu
Dr. Yugang Wang
Dr. Weiming Yan
Dr. Xiaojie Liu
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

  • global change
  • natural resources
  • spatiotemporal evolution
  • process coupling and effects
  • observation test
  • observation technology
  • simulation and prediction
  • regional planning and evaluation
  • adaptive strategies

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 8022 KiB  
Article
Spatiotemporal Characteristic Prediction and Driving Factor Analysis of Vegetation Net Primary Productivity in Central China Covering the Period of 2001–2019
by Xiuping Hao, Xueliu Wang, Jianqin Ma, Yang Chen and Shiyi Luo
Land 2023, 12(12), 2121; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12122121 - 29 Nov 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 917
Abstract
Unveiling the variation mechanism of vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) and elucidating the underlying drivers of these changes is highly necessitated for terrestrial carbon cycle research and global carbon emission control. Taking Henan Province, renowned as the anciently central China and current China’s [...] Read more.
Unveiling the variation mechanism of vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) and elucidating the underlying drivers of these changes is highly necessitated for terrestrial carbon cycle research and global carbon emission control. Taking Henan Province, renowned as the anciently central China and current China’s foremost grain producer, as an example, this study employed the Theil–Sen Median Trend Analysis to evaluate the spatiotemporal characteristics and trends of NPP. Correlation Analysis and Residual Analysis were used to explain the drivers of NPP dynamics. To deepen the inquiry, the Geodetector method was employed to scrutinize the multifaceted effects and interplay among diverse variables influencing NPP. The result showed demonstrated that approximately 85.72% of the area showed an increase in NPP, covering a broad geographical distribution. Notably, 89.31% of the province has witnessed a positive human-driven NPP change. It means human activities emerged as a driving force with a positive effect on vegetation NPP, consequently fostering an increasing trend of NPP. Among climatic factors, the correlation between NPP and precipitation was stronger than that between the temperature and NPP, the determined power of factors in Henan Province was population density, (0.341) > GDP (0.326) > precipitation (0.255) > elevation (0.167) > slope (0.136) > temperature (0.109), and a single factor had a lesser interaction effect than two factors. The implications of these findings extend beyond the realms of research, potentially offering valuable insights into the formulation of targeted ecosystem restoration measures tailored to the distinct context of Henan Province, and also expect to provide crucial references for carbon emission control in China and across the world. Full article
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18 pages, 5547 KiB  
Article
Characterization of Ecosystem Services and Their Trade-Off and Synergistic Relationships under Different Land-Use Scenarios on the Loess Plateau
by Maoqiu Xiong, Fujie Li, Xiaohuang Liu, Jiufen Liu, Xinping Luo, Liyuan Xing, Ran Wang, Hongyu Li and Fuyin Guo
Land 2023, 12(12), 2087; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12122087 - 21 Nov 2023
Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1078
Abstract
The Loess Plateau is one of the most fragile ecological regions in China due to its shortage of water resources and severe soil erosion. The rapid development of urbanization and the implementation of the project of returning farmland to forest (grass) have caused [...] Read more.
The Loess Plateau is one of the most fragile ecological regions in China due to its shortage of water resources and severe soil erosion. The rapid development of urbanization and the implementation of the project of returning farmland to forest (grass) have caused the ecological environment of the region to be strongly impacted by human activities. It is necessary to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of ecosystem services and trade-off/synergy relationships on the Loess Plateau, to achieve scientific management of ecological services and sustainable development of the region. This study quantitatively assesses three ecosystem services of water yield (WY), carbon storage (CS), and soil conservation (SC) on the Loess Plateau under different scenarios from 2000 to 2030 by using the InVEST and PLUS models. Further, the trade-off and synergistic relationships among the ecosystem services have been investigated by Spearman correlation analysis. The results showed that the land-use differences are more obvious under different policy scenarios, with a sharp expansion of constructed land, a gradual increase of forest land, and a continuous decrease of arable land in the Loess Plateau from 2000 to 2020; the water yield and soil conservation increase from 2000 to 2020, and the carbon storage shows an opposite trend. The soil conservation and carbon storage scenarios are the best under the ecological conservation scenario in 2030, while the water yield service is the best under the economic development scenario. There is a synergistic relationship between CS and SC, while there is a trade-off relationship between CS and WY. In addition, there are significant trade-off effects between SC and WY. These results can support guiding land-use management and ecological restoration. Full article
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22 pages, 23482 KiB  
Article
Provincial-Scale Research on the Eco-Security Structure in the Form of an Ecological Network of the Upper Yellow River: A Case Study of the Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region
by Zhonghua Yang, Caihong Ma, Yuanyuan Liu, Honghong Zhao, Yuqi Hua, Shengya Ou and Xin Fan
Land 2023, 12(7), 1341; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12071341 - 4 Jul 2023
Cited by 6 | Viewed by 1244
Abstract
Important for promoting the integrated protection and systematic management of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, and sandy areas, ecological networks form the backbone of the regional ecological security pattern. An improved morphological spatial pattern analysis coupled with a minimum cumulative resistance model [...] Read more.
Important for promoting the integrated protection and systematic management of mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, and sandy areas, ecological networks form the backbone of the regional ecological security pattern. An improved morphological spatial pattern analysis coupled with a minimum cumulative resistance model (MSPA–MCR) based on multi-source data was used to study, on a provincial scale, the ecological security pattern of Ningxia, an ecologically fragile region in the upper reaches of the Yellow River in China. The results show the following: (1) A reasonable classification of ecological sources and ecological corridors is key to constructing hierarchical ecological networks. Classifying ecological sources by replacing patch areas with energy factors and identifying the importance of ecological corridors by modifying the gravity model with the energy factors proposed in this paper could improve the rationality of the hierarchical structure division of ecological networks. (2) Grassland as the substrate vegetation type is an important ecological source type in arid and semi-arid ecologically fragile areas, and forests and lake wetlands are the main ecological source types in mountainous areas and oasis areas, respectively. The study area was located in the arid–semi-arid transitional area, with a variety of ecological types, such as mountain, oasis, and desert. Therefore, the complex ecological source types of forest–grassland–wetland appear in some areas. (3) There are 45 ecological patch groups that can be classified as ecological sources in Ningxia, including 10 primary source groups. The number of primary source groups is small, and their spatial distribution is unbalanced. There are two categories of ecological corridors, the river corridor and the mountain corridor, and the network connectivity is poor. (4) The ecological network structure of Ningxia is presented as an ecological security structure consisting of one belt, three screens, three corridors, and five clusters, forming a hierarchical nested ecological network security structure system. Full article
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16 pages, 4243 KiB  
Article
Land Use Conflicts Assessment in Xiamen, China under Multiple Scenarios
by Ming Zhang, Xiaojie Liu and Dan Yan
Land 2023, 12(2), 424; https://doi.org/10.3390/land12020424 - 6 Feb 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1653
Abstract
The accelerated urbanization process has resulted in increasingly prominent conflicts in land resource utilization and caused numerous ecological and environmental issues. Simulating the evolutionary patterns of land use conflicts (LUCs) is the foundation for promoting sustainable land use. The Markov and GeoSOS-FLUS models [...] Read more.
The accelerated urbanization process has resulted in increasingly prominent conflicts in land resource utilization and caused numerous ecological and environmental issues. Simulating the evolutionary patterns of land use conflicts (LUCs) is the foundation for promoting sustainable land use. The Markov and GeoSOS-FLUS models were used to predict the land use patterns under three different development scenarios, and to analyze the spatio-temporal characteristics of LUCs in Xiamen, China in 2030. Results showed the following: (1) From 2010 to 2020, land use/cover in Xiamen has changed substantially, with an increase of 6.93% in area of construction land and a decrease of 5.40% in area of cropland. (2) In the natural development scenario, the area of construction land in Xiamen is projected to increase, while the areas of cropland and other land types reduce. In the policy intervention scenario, the area of cropland continues increasing and the growth of construction land is effectively controlled. Under the sustainable development scenario, cropland, grassland, and wetlands of high quality that serve important ecological functions have been effectively protected. (3) LUCs in Xiamen differ greatly under the three scenarios in 2030. The sustainable development scenario (SDS) balances the land use needs of both socio-economic development and regional ecological security with the least LUCs, which could be an optimum solution for the long-term sustainable development in Xiamen. The results of this study provide support for decisions about eco-city construction and geospatial planning. Full article
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12 pages, 3696 KiB  
Article
Responses of Phragmites australis to Nitrogen Addition along Salinity Gradients in Coastal Saline–Alkali Soil
by Huarui Gong, Yanyun Han, Jing Li, Zhen Liu, Ruixing Hou, Yitao Zhang, Wenjun Dou, Bing Wang and Zhu Ouyang
Land 2022, 11(12), 2320; https://doi.org/10.3390/land11122320 - 17 Dec 2022
Viewed by 1135
Abstract
Soil salinization and nitrogen (N) enrichment in saline–alkali soils resulting from human activities cause potential environmental pressure on Phragmites australis. However, the response of P. australis to N addition under different salt conditions remains unknown. This study examined the changes in soil [...] Read more.
Soil salinization and nitrogen (N) enrichment in saline–alkali soils resulting from human activities cause potential environmental pressure on Phragmites australis. However, the response of P. australis to N addition under different salt conditions remains unknown. This study examined the changes in soil properties and growth indices as well as their relationship to N addition through an in situ field experiment using three soil salinity levels with P. australis in the Yellow River Delta. The study showed that soil salinity levels significantly affected the effects of N addition on soil pH and water contents. N addition increased the soil NO3 contents and decreased soil available phosphorus (Avail. P) contents; however, soil salinity levels did not impact the effects of N addition on soil NO3 and Avail. P contents. N addition decreased the biomass of P. australis, since the decrease in the competitiveness for N sources changed the vegetation diversity. The results suggest that the biomass, plant height, and leaf soil plant analysis development (SPAD) values of P. australis increased with increasing soil Avail. P contents rather than soil NO3 contents. Therefore, we suggest the important role of Avail. P addition in N enrichment conditions in saline–alkali wasteland and estuarine wetland ecosystems. Full article
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