Search Results (198)

The complex topography and harsh natural environment of the Loess Plateau in Longzhong have been suffering from an undefined living circle structure, which has hindered rural planning and development. A rural community living circle is a spatial unit centered on meeting the needs of villagers, within which various service facilities are rationally allocated within a specific spatial scope. To refine its spatial patterns, the concept of living circles was introduced to address travel challenges. The extent of these living circles is affected by the accessibility of public service facilities and barriers to travel. Using land use data, DEM, population density, and road networks, this study employed the MCR model, gravity model, and ArcGIS spatial analysis to examine the patterns of rural community living circles. The focus was on analyzing the living circle structure of rural communities on the Loess Plateau in Longzhong, considering both natural and artificial environmental constraints. The results show: (1) Rural community living circles present multi-scale spatial features. The basic living circle covers a 15 min slow-travel area. The central living circle corresponds to village-level needs, accessible within 35 min by both slow and motorized travel. The town living circle covers a 10 km radius, reachable within 60 min by a mix of transport modes. The county living circle, dominated by motorized travel, represents the top tier of public service configuration. (2) Quantitatively, the delineation identified 2753 basic, 444 central, 19 township, and 1 county-level living circles in the Anding District of Dingxi City. The Northern, Eastern, and Southwest Zones suffer from fragmented mountainous landscapes, limiting mobility and accessibility. The Central Zone, however, benefits from a combination of mountainous terrain and river valley plains, offering superior service accessibility. (3) The analysis results based on the MCR model and gravity model aligned more closely with reality, reflecting the scale patterns of rural community living circles. The results of this study can provide theoretical guidance for rural planning, construction, and management in the hilly and gully areas of the Loess Plateau. Full article

Catastrophic mass flows originating from the high mountain cryosphere often cause cascading hazards. With increasing human activities in the alpine region and the sensitivity of the cryosphere to climate warming, cryospheric hazards are becoming more frequent in the mountain regions. Monitoring the evolution and impact of the glaciers and ice-rock avalanches and hazard consequences in the mountain regions is crucial to understand nature and drivers of mass flow process in order to prevent and mitigate potential hazard risks. In this study, the glacier and ice-rock avalanches that occurred in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) were investigated based on the Sentinel-2 satellite data and in situ observations, and the main driving forces and impacts on the regional environment, landscape, and geomorphological conditions were also analyzed. The results showed that the avalanche deposit of Arutso glacier No. 53 completely melted away in 2 years, while the deposit of Arutso glacier No. 50 melted in 7 years. Four large-scale ice-rock avalanches in the Sedongpu basin not only had significant impacts on the river flow, landscape, and geomorphologic shape in the basin, but also caused serious disasters in the region and beyond. These glacier and ice-rock avalanches were caused by temperature anomaly, heavy precipitation, climate warming, and seismic activity, etc., which act on the specific glacier properties in the high mountain regions. The study highlights scientific advances should support and benefit the remote and vulnerable mountain communities to make mountain regions safer. Full article

Yaks are important for the ecology and economy of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The growth of the yak industry depends on sustainable and accelerated growth of calves, sustaining herd reproduction and production systems. Yak calves born in the summer months of June and July are faced with a heightened risk of winter mortality. Exclusive traditional, natural feeding prolongs the suckling period, and this leads to a series of problems due to the harsh high-altitude environment, such as inadequate nutrition leading to retarded growth and an imbalanced herd structure. To enhance growth performance and breeding efficiency, 12 male calves of similar weights (68.53 ± 6.41 kg) were randomly assigned to a control group (suckle the dam (SU)) or an experimental group (early weaning with full feeding, concentrate and oat hay at a 7:3 ratio (CO)). The results showed that compared with suckling, early weaning with full feeding significantly improved the growth performance, volatile fatty acids and digestive enzyme activity. The abundance of the Firmicutes was reduced, but there was an increased abundance of Bacteroidetes, which affected the rumen metabolome. In conclusion, early weaning with full feeding improves growth performance, promotes rumen fermentation and carbohydrate degradation, reduces the diversity and richness of rumen microbial flora and alters the content and pathways of metabolites in yak calves. These factors contribute to the growth and market readiness of yak calves born in June and July, accelerate herd turnover and enhance the production efficiency of grazing yaks. Full article

Accurate identification of cultivated land in plateau and mountainous regions remains challenging due to complex terrain and the fragmented, small-scale distribution of farmland. This study develops a high-precision cropland identification model tailored to such environments, aiming to advance precision agriculture and support the scientific planning and refined management of agricultural resources. Taking Xundian County, Yunnan Province, as a case study, multispectral, synthetic aperture radar (SAR), topographic, texture, and time-series features were integrated to construct a comprehensive multi-source feature space. A baseline land use map was generated by fusing datasets from the European Space Agency (ESA), the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI), and the China Resource and Environment Data Cloud (CRLC). Using 4000 randomly selected sample points, five machine learning algorithms—Support Vector Machine (SVM), Random Forest (RF), Tabular Multiple Prediction (TABM), XGBoost, and the NSGA-II optimized XGBoost (NSGA-II-XGBoost)—were compared for cropland identification. Results show that the NSGA-II-XGBoost model consistently achieved superior performance in classification accuracy, stability, and adaptability, reaching an overall accuracy of 95.75%, a Kappa coefficient of 0.91, a recall of 0.96, and an F1-score of 0.96. These findings demonstrate the strong capability of the NSGA-II-XGBoost model for cropland mapping under complex topographic conditions, providing a robust technical framework and methodological reference for farmland protection and natural resource classification in other mountainous regions. Full article

Under global environmental change, the health of rivers and lakes on the “Asian Water Tower”—the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau—is facing mounting pressures. This study examines Qinghai Lake, the Huangshui River, the Golmud River, and the Qinghai reach of the Yangtze River. By integrating the Water Quality Index (WQI) with the AHP–TOPSIS framework, we develop a multidimensional assessment system encompassing water resources, water environment, aquatic ecology, and management functions. The WQI results reveal pronounced spatial heterogeneity in water quality, with conditions ranked as Golmud River > Yangtze River > Huangshui River > Qinghai Lake. Dominant controlling factors also shift from dissolved oxygen in riverine systems to total phosphorus in the lake environment. The comprehensive AHP–TOPSIS evaluation further shows a health ranking of Yangtze River (0.736) > Golmud River (0.602) > Qinghai Lake (0.404) > Huangshui River (0.297), leading to the identification of four distinct management pathways: ecological conservation, natural restoration, nutrient control, and pollution remediation. By moving beyond single-parameter diagnostics, this study provides a robust methodological basis for differentiated river–lake management. The proposed “one river (lake), one strategy” framework, coupled with red-line management recommendations grounded in key indicators, offers direct scientific support for systematic protection and precise governance of aquatic ecosystems on the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, contributing to national ecological security and high-level environmental stewardship. Full article

As one of the nine largest plateau lakes in Yunnan Province, China, Qilu Lake is considered significantly affected by extensive anthropogenic pollution. However, the pollution status and integrated risks posed by organochlorine pesticides and heavy metals in the lake’s sediments remain poorly understood. This study analyzed the concentrations of organochlorine pesticides and heavy metals in 22 surface sediment samples from the Qilu Lake, and assessed their combined ecological and health risks. Results showed that the mean concentrations of five target organochlorine pesticides (α-hexachlorocyclohexane, β-hexachlorocyclohexane, γ-hexachlorocyclohexane, p,p′-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, and o,p′-dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane) were consistently low, whereas most heavy metals, except for arsenic, significantly exceeded Yunnan Province background values, with mercury and cadmium exhibiting the most pronounced enrichment. Source analysis indicated that the heavy metals mainly derived from a mixed agricultural-industrial-traffic source, a natural geogenic source, and industrial-traffic emissions, while the organochlorine pesticides originated from both historical residues and ongoing agricultural applications. A linear model was identified as optimal function for characterizing the adsorption-accumulation relationship between organochlorine pesticides and heavy metals. Ecological risks were dominated by heavy metals, especially cadmium, and the evaluated results showed that the health risks were higher for children than adults. Although non-carcinogenic risks were negligible, carcinogenic risks, particularly from chromium, warrant special attention, especially for children. This study enhances the understanding of combined pollution in rural plateau lakes and provides a scientific basis for achieving sustainable water environment management by (1) establishing an integrated risk assessment framework for pollutants, (2) identifying a priority control pollutant list, and (3) laying a theoretical foundation for targeted ecological restoration strategies, directly supporting the implementation of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6 (clean water and sanitation). Full article

Resource-based regions play an indispensable role as strategic bases for national energy and raw material supply in the global industrialization and urbanization process. However, intensive and large-scale natural resource exploitation—particularly mineral extraction—often triggers dramatic land use/cover changes, leading to a series of problems including cultivated land degradation, ecological function deterioration, and human settlement environment degradation. However, a systematic understanding of the functional transitions within the land use system and their drivers in such regions remains limited. This study takes Shenmu City, a typical resource-based city in the ecologically vulnerable Loess Plateau, as a case study to systematically analyze the transition characteristics and driving mechanisms of land use functions from 2000 to 2020. By constructing an integrated “element–structure–function” analytical framework and employing a suite of methods, including land use transfer matrix, Spearman correlation analysis, and random forest with SHAP interpretation, we reveal the complex spatiotemporal evolution patterns of production–living–ecological functions and their interactions. The results demonstrate that Shenmu City has undergone rapid land use transformation, with the total transition area increasing from 27,394.11 ha during 2000–2010 to 43,890.21 ha during 2010–2020. Grassland served as the primary transition source, accounting for 66.5% of the total transition area, while artificial surfaces became the main transition destination, receiving 38.6% of the transferred area. The human footprint index (SHAP importance: 4.011) and precipitation (2.025) emerged as the dominant factors driving land use functional transitions. Functional interactions exhibited dynamic changes, with synergistic relationships predominating but showing signs of weakening in later periods. The findings provide scientific evidence and a transferable analytical framework for territorial space optimization and ecological restoration management not only in Shenmu but also in analogous resource-based regions facing similar development–environment conflicts. Full article

Accurate detection of wildlife on the Tibetan Plateau is particularly challenging due to complex natural environments, significant scale variations, and the limited availability of annotated data. To address these issues, we propose a semantic-guided multimodal feature fusion framework that incorporates visual semantics, structural hierarchies, and contextual priors. Our model integrates CLIP and DINO tokenizers to extract both high-level semantic features and fine-grained structural representations, while a Spatial Pyramid Convolution (SPC) Adapter is employed to capture explicit multi-scale spatial cues. In addition, we introduce two state-space modules based on the Mamba architecture: the Focus Mamba Block (FMB), which strengthens the alignment between semantic and structural features, and the Bridge Mamba Block (BMB), which enables effective fusion across different scales. Furthermore, a text-guided semantic branch leverages knowledge from large language models to provide contextual information about species and environmental conditions, enhancing the consistency and robustness of detection. Experiments conducted on the Tibetan wildlife dataset demonstrate that our framework outperforms existing baseline methods, achieving 70.2% AP, 88.7% AP50, and 76.8% AP75. Notably, it achieves significant improvements in detecting small objects and fine-grained species. These results highlight the effectiveness of the proposed semantic-guided Mamba fusion approach in tackling the unique challenges of wildlife detection in the complex conditions of the Tibetan Plateau. Full article

The distinctive geographical environment of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau has nurtured a variety of anthocyanin-rich berry plants. This review systematically summarizes the current state of research on anthocyanins obtained from Lycium ruthenicum Murr. (LRAs), Nitraria tangutorun Bobr (NTAs), and Rubus idaeus (RAs) for their potential health benefits and use. The anthocyanins found in these three berries have attracted considerable interest for their significant biological effects, such as their antioxidant, anti-aging, hypoglycemic, anti-inflammatory, and neuroprotective activities, as well as their ability to regulate the gut microbiota and inhibit cancer cells. These anthocyanins have potential applications as natural colorants, packaging materials and smart labels, as well as functional food and health supplements in the food industry. They have diverse molecular architectures with glycosylation and acylation profiles. The structural features of anthocyanins are closely related to their biological activities. This review provides a detailed overview of the chemical structures, synthesis pathways, biological activities, and applications in the food industry of LRAs, NTAs, and RAs. This summary offers a theoretical foundation for exploring plant resources characteristic of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau and for the development and utilization of high-value-added functional foods, pharmaceuticals, and cosmetics. Full article

Species rewilding, as a key strategy for rescuing endangered species and rebuilding wild populations, fundamentally relies on the behavioral plasticity of specific wildlife species. Although most current rewilding initiatives select optimal habitats, research on behavioral adaptation mechanisms in more challenging, extreme environments remains lacking. The Milu (Elaphurus davidianus), a typical wetland and plain species, naturally inhabits the warm marshlands of the Yangtze and Yellow River basins. In this study, using GPS tracking data, we focused on a population of rewilding Milu on the Inner Mongolia Plateau to investigate behavioral plasticity in terms of home range area, activity rhythm, and movement distance, aimed to elucidate their survival adaptation strategies within mid-elevation and cold environments. The results indicated significant seasonal and sex-based differences in both home range and movement distance: home ranges contract and movement distances are minimized during winter, while spatial activity expands markedly in summer—and continues to increase year by year following rewilding. During the study period, the number of daily activity peaks per individual ranged from zero to four. Furthermore, peak timing exhibited clear seasonal variation, with crepuscular patterns—morning and evening activity peaks—predominant across most months. Approximately three months after release, the activity rhythms of both males and females stabilized. These findings reveal key behavioral adjustments of Milu translocated to a mountainous, cold-temperate environment outside its original distribution range, and provide a scientific basis for long-term management and for assessing the ecological adaptability of this introduced population. Full article

In response to the sustainability challenges of mining, restrictive policies aimed at improving ecological quality have been enacted in various countries and regions. The purpose of this study is to examine the environmental changes in the Ningdong mining area, located on the Loess Plateau, over the past 25 years, due to many factors, such as coal mining, using the area as a case study. In this study, Landsat satellite images from 2000 to 2024 were used to derive the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI), while the RSEI results were comprehensively analyzed using the Sen+Mann-Kendall method with Geodetector, respectively. Simultaneously, this study utilized land use datasets to calculate the ecological grade (EG) index. The EG index was then analyzed in conjunction with the RSEI. The results show that in the time dimension, the ecological quality of the Ningdong mining area shows a non-monotonic trend of decreasing and then increasing during the 25-year period; The RSEI average reached its lowest value of 0.279 in 2011 and its highest value of 0.511 in 2022. In 2024, the RSEI was 0.428; The coupling matrix between the EG and RSEI indicates that the ecological environment within the mining area has improved. Through ecological factor-driven analysis, we found that the ecological environment quality in the study area is stably controlled by natural topography (slope) and climate (precipitation) factors, while also being disturbed by human activities. This experimental section demonstrates that ecological and environmental evolution is a complex process driven by the nonlinear synergistic interaction of natural and anthropogenic factors. The results of the study are of practical significance and provide scientific guidance for the development of coal mining and ecological environmental protection policies in other mining regions around the world. Full article

As a fundamental metric for assessing carbon sequestration, Net Primary Productivity (NPP) and the mechanisms driving its spatiotemporal dynamics constitute a critical research domain within global change science. This research centered on the Huang–Huai–Hai Plain (HHHP), combining 2001–2023 MODIS-NPP data with natural (landform, temperature, precipitation, soil) and socio-economic (population density, GDP density, land use) drivers. Trend analysis, coefficient of variation, and Hurst index were applied to clarify the spatiotemporal evolution of NPP and its future trends, while geographic detectors and structural equation models were used to quantify the contribution of drivers. Key findings: (1) Across the HHHP, the multi-year average NPP ranged between 30.05 and 1019.76 gC·m⁻²·a⁻¹, with higher values found in Shandong and Henan provinces, and lower values concentrated in the northwestern dam-top plateau and central plain regions; 44.11% of the entire region showed a statistically highly significant increasing trend. (2) The overall fluctuation of NPP was low-amplitude, with a stable center of gravity and the standard deviation ellipse retaining a southwest-to-northeast direction. (3) Future changes in NPP exhibited persistence and anti-persistence, with 44.98% of the region being confronted with vegetation degradation risk. (4) NPP variations originated from the synergistic impacts of multiple elements: among individual elements, precipitation, soil type, and elevation had the highest explanatory capacity, while synergistic interactions between two elements notably enhanced the explanatory capacity. (5) Climate variation exerted the strongest influence on NPP (direct coefficient of 0.743), followed by the basic natural environment (0.734), whereas human-related activities had the weakest direct impact (−0.098). This research offers scientific backing for regional carbon sink evaluation, ecological security early warning, and sustainable development policies. Full article

Soil organic carbon (SOC) constitutes the largest terrestrial carbon pool and plays a crucial role in climate regulation, soil fertility, and ecosystem functioning. Understanding its spatiotemporal dynamics is particularly important in semi-arid regions, where fragile environments and extensive ecological restoration may alter carbon cycling. The Loess Plateau, the world’s largest loess accumulation area with a history of severe erosion and large-scale vegetation restoration, provides a natural laboratory for examining how environmental gradients influence SOC storage over time. This study used a random forest model with multi-source environmental data to quantify soil organic carbon density (SOCD) dynamics in the 0–100 cm soil layer of the Loess Plateau from 2005 to 2020. SOCD showed strong spatial heterogeneity, decreasing from the humid southeast to the arid northwest. Over the 15-year period, total SOC storage increased from 4.84 to 5.23 Pg C (a 7.9% rise), while the annual sequestration rate declined from 0.046 to 0.020 kg·m⁻²·yr⁻¹, indicating that the regional carbon sink may be approaching saturation after two decades of restoration. Among soil types, Cambisols were the largest carbon pool, accounting for over 44% of total SOC storage. Vegetation productivity emerged as the dominant driver of SOC variability, with clay content as a secondary factor. These results indicate that although ecological restoration has substantially enhanced SOC storage, its marginal benefits are diminishing. Understanding the spatial and temporal patterns of SOC and their environmental drivers provides essential insights for evaluating long-term carbon sequestration potential and informing future land management strategies. Broader generalization requires multi-regional comparisons, long-term monitoring, and deeper soil investigations to capture ecosystem-scale carbon dynamics fully. Full article

The Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP), a globally significant tourist destination and critical ecological barrier, faces an intrinsic conflict between development and conservation. The scientific identification of suitable tourism zones is therefore crucial for formulating sustainable development policies. Conventional suitability assessments, however, which typically rely on subjective, expert-based weighting and static, supply-side data, often fail to capture the complex, non-linear dynamics of actual tourist–environment interactions. To overcome these limitations, an innovative analytical framework is presented, integrating massive tourist trajectory big data (66.7 million GPS points) as an objective, demand-driven suitability proxy, a Geo-detector model to identify key drivers and their interactions, and a Random Forest algorithm for spatial prediction. The framework achieves high predictive accuracy (AUC = 0.827). The results reveal significant spatial heterogeneity: over 85% of the QTP is unsuitable for tourism, while suitable zones are intensely concentrated in southeastern river valleys, forming distinct agglomerations around core cities and along primary transport arteries. Analysis demonstrates that supporting conditions—particularly transport accessibility and service facility density—are the dominant drivers, their influence substantially surpassing that of natural resource endowment. Furthermore, the formation of high-suitability zones is not attributable to any single factor but rather to the synergistic coupling of multiple conditions. This research establishes a replicable, data-driven paradigm for tourism planning in environmentally sensitive regions, offering a robust scientific basis to guide the sustainable development of the QTP. Full article

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is uniquely characterized by widespread permafrost and desertification due to its distinctive natural environment and geographic setting. The current lack of understanding regarding the mechanisms by which the number of freeze-thaw cycles (N) exacerbates soil erosion poses a significant challenge to accurately assessing regional erosion dynamics. Here, we simulate realistic freeze-thaw conditions using an optimized cryogenic simulator and systematically quantify changes in soil physical properties, surface microstructure, and frost heave deformation. Research shows that as the number of freeze-thaw cycles rises, the surface soil moisture content decreases by 54.3%. Total porosity and bulk density display opposite trends. These changes in soil properties are mainly driven by frost heave forces disrupting soil cohesion. In particular, repeated water-ice phase transitions lead to continuous accumulation of axial frost heave stress, which rearranges soil particles. This significantly raises surface porosity with a growth rate as high as 60.3% and greatly reduces the soil’s resistance to external erosion. At the same time, the aggregate size distribution shifts toward finer particles, accompanied by a continued decrease in the mean weight diameter (MWD), which declines by approximately 8%. Notably, this degradation persists even when external loading partially suppresses frost heave. Therefore, the progressive physical degradation induced by frost heave-manifested through as moisture loss, porosity changes, aggregate breakdown, and compromised stability even under load-establishes the core mechanistic pathway through which freeze-thaw cycles intensify erosion in QTP soils. Full article