Search Results (3)

The loess hilly region is a typical ecologically fragile and sensitive area. It is of great significance when measuring the balance between supply and demand of ecosystem services and clarify the relationship between supply and demand of ecosystem services for scientific ecological restoration zoning and realizing regional ecological security and social and economic sustainable development. We take Yuzhong County in the loess hilly region of Longzhong, China as an example; by constructing the matching and coordinating relationship between ecosystem service supply and demand and following the idea of “problem diagnosis—strategic orientation—key optimization”, this paper delimits the ecological restoration zones and proposes corresponding governance strategies. The results show that: (1) The supply and demand of ecosystem services were mainly at a low and medium level, with significant spatial heterogeneity. Overall, the spatial pattern of ecosystem services showed high supply and low demand in the southwest mountainous areas and showed low supply and high demand in the urban gully areas of Yuzhong. (2) There were four types of spatial matching of ecosystem service supply and demand: HH type, LH type, LL type, and HL type. The local spatial autocorrelation of supply and demand was dominated by high-low or low-high spatial misadjustment. The average degree of coordination between supply and demand of ecosystem services was 0.629, indicating that supply and demand were basically coordinated. (3) The ecological restoration zones in Yuzhong County can be divided into six categories: the ecological core protection area, ecological potential restoration area, key ecological restoration area, soil and water conservation restoration area, ecological agriculture development area, and ecological innovation promotion area. The results of this study can provide ideas for the refined management and targeted restoration practice of regional ecosystem services. It provides a strong guarantee for ecosystem management and decision-making in the loess hilly region. Full article

The land problem is the key to the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, and the land suitability evaluation is the basis for the renovation and classification of idle rural residential areas. Taking Yuzhong County in the Loess Hilly region of Longzhong, China as the research area, this study constructed an idle residential identification matrix by combining the evaluation results of ecological protection suitability, agricultural production suitability, and construction and development suitability, and realizing renovation zoning of rural residents through the advantage type identification method. The results show that: (1) The waste in rural residential is serious, and there are significant phenomena of “one household with two houses” and “one household with multiple houses.” The renovation potential of 1700 idle rural residential patches is 1.18 km². (2) The spatial differences in the suitability of rural residents in Yuzhong County are significant, and through the rational guidance and planning layout of rural residential renovation, it can provide an important decision-making basis for the rational utilization of rural residents and national land–space planning. (3) The renovation of rural residential should be guided by national land–space planning; make a solid plan for the renovation of rural residential areas; formulate a scientific plan for the renovation, relocation, and reuse of rural “hollow houses”; stimulate the vitality of rural land resources; and promote the revitalization of the countryside and the improvement of the rural living environment. Full article

The Loess Plateau of China (CLP) is located in the transition zone from a semi-humid climate zone to semi-arid and arid climate zones. It is influenced by the westerly circulation, plateau monsoon, and East Asian monsoon circulation, and the drought disasters across the CLP have obvious regional characteristics. In this study, climate regionalization was performed by a spatial hierarchical cluster approach based on the gridded datasets of monthly precipitation across the CLP from 1961 to 2017. Then, the standardized precipitation index (SPI) was used to explore the temporal evolution of regional meteorological droughts. Finally, wavelet methods were used to investigate the drought cycles in each homogeneous subregion and the linkages between SPI and the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). The results show that: (1) Spatially, the CLP can be divided into four homogeneous regions, namely, Ordos Plateau semi-arid area (Region I), Northern Shanxi hilly semi-humid area (Region II), Longzhong plateau cold-arid area (Region III), and Fenwei Plain and Shaanxi-Shanxi hilly semi-humid area (Region IV). (2) There are apparent differences in the temporal evolution of meteorological droughts in different subregions, but two wet periods from the 1960s to 1980s and 2010s, and a drought period in the 1990s, can be found in each subregion. (3) There is a significant drought cycle of 3–8 years in the four subregions, and the first main cycles of drought variation are not completely consistent. (4) The linkages between SPI and SOI are time- and space-dependent and the phase differences are dominated by in-phase. The strongest correlations between the two time series occur in the 1980s in the four subregions. The results of this research have important implications for the establishment of drought monitoring programs in homogeneous climate regions, and informed decision making in water resource management. Full article