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With rapid urbanization, environmental problems such as soil erosion and resource shortages have emerged. Ecological environmental quality is decreasing, and ecological security issues are becoming increasingly prominent; thus, relevant research is particularly urgent. The ecological security issue is complex due to many influencing factors. The transformation of landscape type is the most important factor affecting ecological security. Therefore, there is an urgent need to optimize and screen for the indicator factors that affect ecological security, carry out a dynamic evaluation of ecological security based on landscape pattern analysis, and analyze the driving forces behind ecological security changes. Song County is located in the ecological core area of the Funiu Mountains in western Henan, with complex topography and geomorphology; large changes in landscape patterns in recent years; frequent geological disasters, which have posed a greater threat to people's life and property safety; and significant ecological security problems. This paper takes Song County as the research area, using the decision tree model to obtain the land use classification results of four periods in Song County in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020 based on remote sensing images. Landscape pattern analysis is conducted from two aspects: patch level and landscape level. On this basis, ecological security evaluation indicators are constructed from three levels: pressure, state, and response, and the comprehensive index model is used to obtain the results of four ecological security evaluations. Exploratory spatial data analysis (ESDA) is used to conduct research and prediction on spatiotemporal differentiation. Finally, the spatial heterogeneity relationship between the ecological security level and its driving factors in Song County is quantitatively analyzed using a geographic detector model. The results clearly show that the overall landscape form gradually tends to develop in the direction of complex irregularity. Due to frequent geological disasters and strong human engineering activities near the core areas of the Luhun Reservoir and Yi River basin, as well as Baihejie Village in Baihe Township and Che Village in Muzhijie Township, the landscape pattern is changing considerably. The self-restoration ability of the land's ecosystem is gradually weakening, and the degree of ecological damage is gradually accelerating. The ecological security level is unsafe, the area of unsafe security is gradually increasing, and the ecological security index (ESI) will continue to decrease in the future. To improve ecological security, we recommend paying attention to land conservation and rational utilization while pursuing economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper aims to propose a prediction method based on Deep Learning (DL) and Internet of Things (IoT) technology, focusing on the ecological security and tourist satisfaction of Ice-and-Snow Tourism (IST) to solve practical problems in this field. Accurate predictions of ecological security and tourist satisfaction in IST have been achieved by collecting and analyzing environment and tourist behavior data and combining with DL models, such as convolutional and recurrent neural networks. The experimental results show that the proposed method has significant advantages in performance indicators, such as accuracy, F1 score, Mean Squared Error (MSE), and correlation coefficient. Compared to other similar methods, the method proposed improves accuracy by 3.2%, F1 score by 0.03, MSE by 0.006, and correlation coefficient by 0.06. These results emphasize the important role of combining DL with IoT technology in predicting ecological security and tourist satisfaction in IST. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Is it possible to imagine the deployment of geoengineering in the service of ecological security? Ecological security––a concern with the resilience of ecosystems––appears to caution against forms of intervention that might serve to change and/or undermine the functionality of ecosystems. Yet ecosystem functionality is already challenged by processes associated with climate change, and some degree of climate change is already locked in. This paper examines this challenging but important issue. After defining ecological security and noting varied forms of geoengineering, the paper explores the opportunities for––and challenges of––imagining geoengineering in the service of ecological security, especially in the context of solar radiation management. While arguing that it is possible to conceive a role for geoengineering in the service of ecological security, this must be contingent on extensive research supporting deployment and must be tempered by restraint and a commitment to precaution, humility, reflexivity and dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A scientific ecological security assessment framework is critical to regional ecological security. This paper improves the emergy ecological footprint model which optimizes the traditional emergy ecological footprint by adding the water supply service, to assess ecological security, and quantitatively analyzed the factors affecting ecological security by partial least squares regression. Zhejiang Province, one of the most developed provinces in China, was selected as a case study. The results show that (1) the emergy carrying capacity (ECC) per capita suffered a reduction from 2004 to 2018. (2) The emergy ecological footprint (EEF) per capita presented a rising trend, with a growth rate of 70.13% from 2004 to 2018. (3) The emergy ecological footprint per capita of biologically productive land has increased except for grassland and waters. (4) There was an ecological surplus in the period of 2004–2009, but an ecological deficit appeared after 2009. (5) The ecological insecurity in Zhejiang Province was increasing, which transformed from a comparably safe state to a relatively unsafe state. (6) The dominant influencing factors affecting Zhejiang's ecological security were population density, urban built-up area per capita, secondary industry output value, etc. These findings could provide valuable decision support to policy makers in formatting policies on ecological management and sustainable regional development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To improve the analysis effect of the simulation and prediction of the expansion effect of urban construction land, this paper combines the digital sensing feature recognition and remote sensing analysis technology for the earth's surface, and uses Artificial-neural-network-based cellular automaton (ANN-CA) Markov model and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model to study and analyze the expansion effect and trend of urban construction land, and subdivides the spatial and temporal characteristics of land cover. In addition to that, multi-based sensing data is used to generate urban construction land expansion effect drivers. The multi-source sensing data and InVEST model are used to conduct spatial information analysis and ecological early-warning. The research shows that combining digital sensing feature identification and remote sensing analysis technology, using the analysis model of ANN-CA-Markov model and InVEST model can effectively improve the analysis effect of urban construction land expansion effect prediction, and carry out ecological early-warning of construction land expansion on this basis. Overall territorial spatial planning stage of Xuzhou city, the designated ecological space area accounts for 20% of the whole land area. There is a sharp contradiction between constructive land expansion and ecological security in the whole region, so it is appropriate to conduct precise intervention and efficient management of constructive land expansion according to ecological early-warning. • Improving the simulation of urban construction land expansion by sensing technology. • Using Digital sensing land cover feature recognition based on multi-source sensing data. • The erosion of plough was most affected by the driver factor. • ANN-CA-Markov model to improve the accuracy of simulation. • Measurement models combined with remote sensing technology for the earth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study takes the aborigines of Chongqing Daba Mountain National Nature Reserve as samples, and uses interviews and questionnaires to investigate the aspects of aborigines' legal protection awareness of wildlife, government protection behavior, and aborigines' willingness to illegally eat and trade wildlife. Using structural equation model, this study analyzes the legal protection awareness of the aboriginals and the underlying factors. The results showed that the aborigines were the main participants in the local government implemented wildlife protection actions, and their willingness to eat, buy and sell wild animals and participate in wildlife protection were positively affected by the educational back-ground, cognitive level, legal awareness, and the attitude and work of the government. The whole model passed the fitting test, indicating that the research results were robust. Therefore, according to the development of legal protection of wild animals in the reserve, this paper proposed improvement strategies. Specific measures include defining the scope of illegal consumption and trade of wild animals, and improving the wildlife quarantine and supervision standards; improving the restoration of the ecological barrier in Daba Mountain Reserve, and focusing on the key protected wild species; enhancing the systematic combination of the traditional customs activities of all ethnic groups in the Daba Mountain Reserve with the protective development of ecological resources. The findings of the study provide reference for the legal protection of wildlife in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The text discusses the critical issue of environmental and ecological security and emphasizes the need for a comprehensive scientific approach to solving these challenges. The paper highlights the interconnection of human activities, the ecosystem, and the natural environment and the potential consequences of neglecting their interdependence. The text explores various aspects of environmental and ecological security, including climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution, and resource depletion. It emphasizes the importance of adopting sustainable practices, implementing effective policies, and promoting awareness and education in preserving the future of our planet. The importance of understanding and mitigating the impact of human activities on the environment is also highlighted in order to ensure a sustainable and secure future for generations to come. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper studied the impact of new industrial activities on ecological security in agricultural and animal husbandry interlaced areas, and provided reference for eco-environmental protection and sustainable development. A pressure-state-response (PSR) assessment model was established in the case of Yanchi County, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. The comprehensive weights of the indexes were determined by AHP and entropy weight, and the ecological security status of agricultural and animal husbandry interlaced areas was evaluated. The results show that the index of pressure system fluctuated and decreased, and went through the stage from "Safe" to "Unsafe"; The index of the state system showed a rising trend, from "Extremely unsafe" to "Relatively safe", which showed the sensitivity characteristic; The response system index had been increasing year by year, and had stabilized at a "Safe" level in 2019;The overall ecosystem security index showed a fairly good development trend, with significant improvement in ecosystem functions in 2019. On the basis of the stable state system, we should ease the pressure index in the ecological security system of Yanchi County, control the scale of tourists, reduce the damage of farming and animal husbandry to the cultivated layer, and stabilize the population. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The land consolidation project is one of the most important approaches to ensure national food and ecological security. An academic journal “Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering” launched a column of “Land Consolidation Project” in 2002, in order to promote the research of land consolidation project. This column was renamed the “Land Resource Guarantee and National Land Ecological Security” from the 9th issue of May 2020, with the continuous expansion of research fields in the modern land consolidation project. In this study, the bibliometrics was utilized to statistically analyze the papers published in the “Land Consolidation Project” column of “Transactions of the Chinese Society of Agricultural Engineering” from 2002 to 2020. Great research progress was highlighted in the different research directions, and then the future focus was proposed in the field of land resource and national ecological security, with emphasis on China's strategy of food and ecological security. The results showed that the research directions of land consolidation project mainly included land use, land evaluation, agricultural land consolidation, cultivated land quality and safety, 3S and land information technology, industrial and mining wasteland reclamation, rural residential area consolidation, land ecology, land restoration, basic farmland construction and protection, land saving, rural spatial pattern and development, cultivated land development, as well as urban land consolidation. Furthermore, land evaluation, agricultural land consolidation, and cultivated land quality and safety had become hot topics, where the publications accounted for 10.52%, 10.16%, and 8.51%, respectively. 5-keyword clustering was formed, such as the land evaluation, agricultural land consolidation, cultivated land quality and safety, 3S and land information technology, as well as industrial and mining wasteland reclamation. Additionally, 10 groups of cooperation networks were formed in the leading research fields using the cooperation network of research authors generated by VOSviewer. More importantly, the published papers in the “Land Consolidation Project Column” had covered all directions of the land consolidation project. Ecological land consolidation and land-use security pattern were established in recent years, where the ecological effect of land consolidation was analyzed using the theory of landscape ecology. Moreover, many efforts have been made on the ecological design and restoration technology of single land consolidation project, together with the pattern evolution and layout optimization of rural residential areas. In the future, much more attention can be paid to the land resource security and national land ecological security, particularly to the theories and mechanisms in the “systematization, ecologicalization, informationization and intelligence” for the protection and restoration of the regional ecosystem, to realize “overall protection, unified restoration and comprehensive management” of “mountain-water-forest-field-lake-grass”. Consequently, the ecological security pattern of national land can be built, once the research on the intelligent management of one map of natural resources was implemented using the state-of-the-art big data in intelligent agriculture [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The essence of ecological security focuses on ecological risk and ecological vulnerability, and the study of ecological security is the hot points of low-carbon green development, which has important theoretical value and practical significance for optimizing landscape ecological spatial structure and maintaining ecological sustainability. Based on the interdisciplinary principles and methods involved in geography, ecology, remote sensing and GIS, this paper studies the characteristics and laws of climate change and landscape pattern, the coupling relationship between climate change and ecological process, landscape pattern and functional properties. The relationship between landscape pattern, climate factors and soil, hydrological processes and vegetation processes in the ecosystem is analyzed, and the effects of climate change on carbon storage, NPP and ecosystem services are studied to reveal the impact of climate change on ecological processes. The comprehensive analysis shows that climate factors affect the characteristics and changes of ecological security. Meanwhile, landscape pattern is the basis of restricting regional ecological security, and the effects of climate change and landscape pattern on ecological security mechanism are complex. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Under the background of firmly ensuring the grain security and maintaining the ecological security, the application effect of direct subsidy policy for grain production in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region was analyzed in order to provide policy suggestions for promoting the grain yield increase in a safe and ecological way. By using the panel data vector auto regression model and taking the macro data of 12 League cities in the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region from 2004 to 2018 as the research sample, Granger causality test, impulse function analysis and variance decomposition on the direct subsidy policy of grain production in Inner Mongolia were conducted in this paper. The results showed that the policy did not significantly promote the grain yield and ecological security. Therefore, it was suggested that we should explore the method of subsidies according to the output of commercial grain, guide different regions to appropriately arrange the scale of grain production according to the carrying capacity of water resou rces and cultivated land, and improve the matching degree between resource ecology and grain production. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Source-Resistance-Corridor Basic Framework for Identifying Restoration Areas. • Quantifying wetland ecosystem services to extract wetland ecological sources. • Provides solutions for identifying large-scale wetland restoration areas. • Focus on the relevance of wetlands and water systems. In recent years, wetland resources have been threatened by human activities such as mining, agriculture and construction land expansion, and problems such as shrinkage of wetland area and deterioration of water quality have emerged, impeding the exchange of materials between wetlands and reducing the ecological function of wetlands. Water systems are important channels for material exchange between wetland sources, and evaluating the ecological safety of wetland–water system ecological corridors can aid in efficiently delineating ecological restoration areas and identifying ecological problems. In this paper, the ecological safety of wetland–hydrological ecological corridors in the Han River Basin was evaluated, and ecological restoration areas were delineated by adopting the method of "identification of source areas - construction of resistance surfaces - extraction of wetland–hydrological ecological corridors" with the watershed as the research unit. The study identified wetland–hydrological ecological corridors with a total length of 7,589.77 km and delineated 31 sections of wetland–hydrological ecological corridors with a total length of 1,076 km; these corridors were located in the Hanzhong Canyon area, tributaries of the Danjiang River and Tangbai River, and tributaries of the main streams below Danjiangkou. Among them, 8 sections of the primary corridor account for 27 %, 14 sections of the secondary corridor account for 33 %, and 9 sections of the tertiary corridor account for 39 %. This study breaks administrative boundaries, emphasizes the correlation between wetlands and water bodies, highlights the integrity of ecosystems, and establishes a multidimensional systematic restoration methodology of "points, lines and surfaces", which provides guidelines for the long-term planning of ecological corridors of wetlands and water systems in large-scale regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents key reflections on compromised ecological and human security. Man's growing insecurity has been affected by global ecological issues in two ways, directly and indirectly. The former involves health implications of exposure to ultraviolet radiation, while the latter is linked to potential climate changes and malnutrition. Not all ecological hazards are global, but it is clear that they exacerbate local pollution-related concerns and that individual countries are not capable of addressing them on their own. How the perspective of human security can be incorporated into the analysis of environmental challenges and how the ecological dimension can be bolstered in the analysis of human security are some of the other issues examined in this paper. The paper aims to recognize the role and importance of international organizations based on conceptual, analytical and operational considerations of ecological and human security issues. Namely, through mutual cooperation and joint activities these organizations are making great efforts to produce results by analyzing the interaction between factors of global change and degradation of the environment and factors affecting human security. Among the more important organizations mentioned are the UN and several of its agencies and suborganizations that are part of the “UN family” (UNDP, UNESCO, UNU, UNU-EHS, UNEP, FAO) as well as a number of regional organizations such as OSCE and EU. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Compared to issues related to the economy, politics, social or military concerns, attempts to preserve ecology and the natural environment have a relatively short history. Anthropogenic environmental changes in many cases have a direct impact on one's quality of life and the functioning of urban centers, states and communities. Pressure exerted by human economic activity on the environment is demonstrated, above all, by reductions in air, water, and soil quality, worse acoustic climate, and limited access to green spaces. The most detrimental undertakings have a negative impact on the level of ecological security in cities are transport, domestic heating of buildings, industrial activities, and heating processes. The main goal of this paper is to identify the perception of the ecological security of the residents of the biggest urban centers. Urban environment security is a very broad issue. It covers both natural phenomena, where human impact is minimal, levels of urban sustainable development and attitudes of the city dwellers. Recently, citizen awareness of the importance of environmental challenges in Polish cities' development has surged, including awareness of the desire to live in a cleaner environment and to breathe clean air. The topic is more and more often discussed in public debate, above all during periods of peak contaminant concentrations. The situation serves as a stimulus for citizens to mobilize, often through various social movements while local governments take actions oriented at changing methods of domestic heating, more eco-friendly mobility and the enhanced environmental education of society. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The economic compensation of cultivated land protection is one of the most effective ways to provide protection measures for cultivated land and protect cultivated land resources. The reasonable division of compensation areas is an important link in the construction of an economic compensation mechanism and policy implementation. This research takes into account the dual perspectives of food security and ecological security. Taking Fujian province as a research area, the paper divides the economic compensation area of cultivated land protection in the Fujian province by using the food security method, ecological footprint, and carrying capacity calculation model. Results show that: nine cities in Fujian province can be divided into two farmland protection economic compensation payment zones (Zhangzhou city and Xiamen city), three farmland protection economic compensation zones (Quanzhou city, Sanming city, and Nanping city), and 4 balance zones (Fuzhou city, Ningde city, Putian city, and Longyan city). These results will help provide a theoretical basis for scientifically delineating the compensation area for cultivated land protection and provide a practical reference for local governments to formulate a reasonable compensation system for cultivated land protection to achieve conservation and the sustainable use of cultivated land resources. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Improving ecological footprint model through ecosystem service value. • Fully consider the diversity of ecosystem functions. • Constructing a multi-angle perspective for ecological security evaluation through indices. • Providing references for future ecological security studies in small-medium scale areas. The ecological environment in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) urban agglomeration has been affected by the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, such as the urbanization lags behind industrialization and the level of town construction is backward, resulting in ecological and environmental problems. Thus, this paper detected the ecological security (ES) in the PRD urban agglomeration through the ecological footprint (EF) method, providing a reference for regional ES evaluation. Equivalence factor and yield factor were first calculated based on the ecosystem services value (ESV) for EF calculation. Then, we established the ES evaluation index system through EF, including per capita ecological deficit (ED), ecological footprint diversity index (EFDI) and ecological pressure index (EPI). The results showed that the difference between equivalence factor and yield factor for various land type was observed in the study region. Water regions had the largest equivalence factor, with the value of 2.48, indicating that human activities were most affected by water. Grassland has the highest biological production capacity as the yield factor of which is the highest, with the value of 4.36 in 2020. Temporally, the per capita EF in the PRD urban agglomeration has been increased from 2000 to 2020, while the per capita ecological carrying capacity (ECC) has been decreased over time, indicating that the ecological pressure is rising because of human activities. Spatially, the per capita EF and the per capita ECC show a spatial pattern of "low in the middle and high around". In addition, the per capita ED shows an increasing trend, reaching 0.11 hm2/capita by 2020. The EFDI has decreased by 0.26, indicating that the richness and fairness of the ecosystem are declining. The ES is in "not safe" and "extremely unsafe" level in 2020, which has threatened the ecological environment in the region. Therefore, the ecological environment in this region is deteriorating, restricting sustainable development. There is no doubt that the region needs to strengthen environmental protection and balance the relationship between economy and ecology. If ecology is not taken seriously, the ED will grow and the insecurity of the ecological environment will continue to increase. The current state of the ecological environment in the PRD urban agglomeration is only a microcosm of the ecology in many small and medium scale regions. The results of this paper are useful for providing ideas for EF and ES analysis of other regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• ESDA was applied to estimate the pattern of ecological security (ES) in PRD, China. • Hot and cold spots for the spatial distribution of ES were identified. • Optimal management was proposed from three categories for each municipality. • The main factors influencing ES distribution were explored using semivariance. The ecological security (ES) pattern in China is gaining considerable attention worldwide due to intensifying urban development and human activities that threaten ecosystem structures and ecological processes. The Pearl River Delta (PRD) has experienced intense economic development for nearly 40 years; however, the ES pattern in the PRD is poorly understood. In this paper, we used a multisource data approach to assess ES, performed downscaling to a 1 × 1 km2 grid size, and applied spatial statistics to analyze the ES pattern in the PRD. We found three natural "ecological buffers," namely, nature reserves and forest patches covering several municipalities in the delta, thus guaranteeing the socio-economic development of this highly urbanized area. The spatial autocorrelation results indicated that the ES pattern is significantly spatially correlative (p = 0.001), with a Moran's I of 0.7766. We identified several hot and cold spots for the ES spatial distribution that occupied 58.49% of the PRD's total area. Moreover, a semivariance analysis showed that structural factors are dominant in the ES spatial distribution. Based on the ES area proportions, the 9 municipalities of the PRD can be grouped into three categories: optimized development zones, comprehensive development zones, and ecological conservation development areas. Zhaoqing, Huizhou and Jiangmen are key areas for improving ES conservation in the PRD. In this study, we explore an ES assessment model coupled with a spatial heterogeneity analysis to provide insights into ecological conservation efforts in urban agglomerations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Landscape pattern evolution leads to changes of landscape spatial structure, which are intuitively reflected in the changes of ecosystem structure and composition and finally affect ecological security. In this paper, we assessed the spatiotemporal variation of the ecological security and landscape pattern of the middle and lower reaches of Shule River Basin in 1987–2015. Further, we analyzed the correlation between the ecological security and landscape pattern of the study region and correlation coefficients were calculated. On this basis, the key landscape pattern indices influencing the ecological security of the study region were identified. This may provide useful information for ecological regulation and design. The results show that: (1) From 1987 to 2015, the ecological security in the middle and lower reaches of the Shule River Basin was of medium or low level, showing periodic "U" shaped fluctuations, and the fluctuation period was gradually shortened. In addition, there was an overall spatial pattern of "high ecological security in the west, middle and south and low ecological security in the east". (2) The landscape pattern showed clear stage characteristics. The complexity of landscape pattern increased from 1987 to 1996 and decreased after 1996. (3) Landscape size, shape, quantity, type and spatial configuration had important impacts on ecological security and showed significant temporal variation. In a period when the influence of human activities was weak, ecological security was mainly related to landscape area indices. With increase in human activities, landscape shape, fragmentation and connectivity changed greatly, which led to changes in the structure and composition of ecosystem, thus finally affecting ecological security. Unlabelled Image • Landscape structure and function change would seriously threaten regional and global ecological security. • The temporal-spatial variation of ecological security and landscape pattern was significant in the Shule River. • The variation of ecological security was U-shaped and periodic, but the variation period was gradually shortened. • There was temporal variation of the relationship between ecological security and landscape pattern. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract Invasive alien species pose great threats to ecological and economic health and cause enormous losses to global ecosystems. The Mikania micrantha management program is a source of great theoretical and practical insights for regional agricultural and forestry development. In this paper, the invasion history and distribution patterns of M. micrantha in the China-Myanmar Border Region are summarized, and the short-term and long-term performance of the current post-border management program are evaluated. A literature survey found that M. micrantha was mainly distributed in 85 townships of five municipalities along the border in China with Myanmar, suggesting an explicit border-crossing scenario of M. micrantha. The M. micrantha management program has produced positive but short-term results due to the conduction of general investigations, establishment of an extensive monitoring network, development of integrated measures, and improvements of public awareness and participation. However, the long-term management performance was hampered by overlapping departmental functions, lagging and unreliable public feedback, inadequate funding, and biased and passive strategies. We suggest that invasive species committees, social media tools, public-private partnership, and forest restoration and conservation and biological control could greatly improve the situation. This regional-scale research provides referential insights for the development of biological invasion management systems in developing economies under transboundary contexts. Highlights • Mikania micrantha has invaded southwest China through the border with Myanmar. • The current management program features effective but short-term performance. • Several factors hamper the long-term performance of Mikania micrantha management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Taking Yuexi county, the core area of Dabie Mountain, which is a focus in China's targeted poverty alleviation campaign, as the research unit, and based on remote sensing and GIS platform, we selected ten ecological resistance factors, namely, elevation, slope, land use type, vegetation coverage, soil erosion, and distance from tourist spot, industrial land, water area, road, residential areas, to establish an ecological security evaluation index system. With the aid of ArcGIS, ecological security level was evaluated and potential ecological corridor recognition was extracted, through Exploratory Spatial Data Analysis (ESDA) method, Minimum Cumulative Resistance (MCR) model and gravity model, to build ecological resistance. The results showed that: The high and higher level regions accounted for 37.79% of the total area of the county, while the low and lower ranking regions accounted for 51.89%, which present the spatial characteristics that the low level ecological security units were distributed in the north part, while the high level ones were in the south part, and that the overall ecological security level was relatively low in the county. Secondly, the spatial distribution characteristics of ecological security by means of ESDA analysis method indicated that the global Moran's I index was 0.6374, and LISA figure showed that there were mainly high (HH) and low (LL) types of aggregation for ecological security level, and the ecological security had a significant spatial clustering characteristic in Yuexi county. On this basis, good habitat in the nature reserve and large scenic spot patches were chosen as the ecological source, which is the first step for ecological source cumulative cost resistance surface generated by cost distance tool of ArcGIS. Then, the minimum cumulative cost path and the potential ecological corridor were identified and constructed based on MCR model. The results showed that a total of 21 important potential ecological corridors and 103 ecological nodes were identified and extracted, including 13 first- level corridors and 8 secondary corridors by means of gravity model. Finally, according to the characteristics of the tourism poverty alleviation industry and ecological economic development in the study area, the paper put forward the layout model of "one ring and three zones" ecological corridor network framework and some optimization countermeasures. This model is an effective supplement to the development pattern of ecological economy industry in Yuexi county. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Objective] In this paper, the factors affecting the ecological security of cultivated land in Urumqi were analyzed in past 15 years, and the ecological security levels were described more carefully. [Method] Taken Urumqi city as the study area, the cultivated land ecological security evaluation index of dynamic balance(3 groups 18) was constructed, using the entropy weight theory assignment for each indicator and the matter-element model, the cultivated land ecological security of dynamic balance in Urumqi was quantitatively analyzed. [Result] Between 2005 and 2020, the ecological security situation of cultivated land in Urumqi gradually increased. Matter-element analysis of single evaluation results showed that the influence factors of restricting the cultivated land ecological security of dynamic balance were cultivated land per capita, farmland and proportion of agricultural land, cultivated land and construction land scale, growth rate of per capita net income of farmers, the GDP growth rate, the first industrial production growth rate and industrial wastewater emissions success rate. According to the requirements of the overall planning of the land use of Urumqi in 2020, it was expected that the cultivated land in Urumqi would be more important to the ecological security, and the security level would be increased obviously. [Conclusion] In 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2020, the cultivated land in Urumqi were safe, safe, safe and safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Jinghuiqu Canal Irrigation District is an old irrigation area with a long history. Due to natural and man-made factors, the infl ow and rainfall of the irrigation area are decreasing, which seriously affects agricultural production water in the irrigation area and constantly threatens the safety of irrigation water in irrigation area. In this paper, natural and man-made factors of affecting irrigation water in irrigation area are analyzed, and it is proposed that main channels of solving safety of irrigation water are enhancing the utilization of canal water and optimizing the allocation of canals and wells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan is an urban agglomeration along the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, the development plan of which is listed as one of national strategic development. The eco-environmental quality of the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan urban agglomeration concerns the ecological security of China. It is essential to discuss the method of creating urban agglomeration plans to increase ecological security. In this paper, the ecosystem distributions were mapped using the CLUE-S model incorporated with Gray Model (GM) (1, 1) and an auto-logistic regression model under the conditions of a natural increase scenario (NIS), a cultivated protection scenario (CPS) and an ecological protection scenario (EPS). We analyzed the change and conversion characteristics of ecosystems both in the study area and the junction of Changsha, Zhuzhou and Xiangtan. The results showed that the ecosystem change model developed in this paper performed well in mapping future urban ecosystem distributions. The change of the ecosystem spatial distributions showed us that the built-up ecosystem would expand in the future by transforming cultivated and green land ecosystems and that the boundaries between cities would be blurred. In the whole study area, the amount of converted area from cultivated and green land to built-up land was lower in CPS and EPS than in NIS. However, in the key area, the converted result was contrary to the whole study area. Although the CPS and EPS were beneficial to the eco-environmental protection of the whole study region, the sub-regional eco-environment should be given more attention to assure that the ecological security of the whole region remains safe. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • Integrating the Ecological Security Pattern and the PLUS Model. • The impact of future land changes on wetland landscape patterns. • Establish wetland ecological networks and identify potential key points. • The results of the study can guide the planning of eco-cities. The construction of wetland ecological security pattern has important guiding significance for balancing urban development and ecological restoration. In this paper, the PLUS model was used to simulate the land use change under the business as usual scenario (BAU), economic development scenario (ED) and expansionary conservation scenario (EC) in 2030. Coupled with the wetland ecological security pattern, four wetland ecological networks were constructed for vertical and horizontal comparative analysis. The optimal network was selected and ecological pinch points and obstacles were identified. The results showed that: (1) The land use change mainly occurred in the main urban area of Haikou. Under BAU and ED scenarios, the area of construction land increased greatly. Under EC scenarios, the overall ecological land in Haikou would expand, but the area of wetland showed a downward trend. (2) In 2030, the overall ecological wetland network will be improved, the number and length of corridors will increase significantly, and the network structure under EC scenario will be more stable. (3) The number and area of ecological pinch points and obstacle points under the EC scenario in 2020 and 2030 increased significantly, and this area should be regarded as a priority area for ecological protection. This study provides a new perspective for ecological protection and restoration, and provides a reference for clarifying the direction of wetland ecological restoration work and formulating urban construction and development policies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The ecological maintenance was studied based on ecological environment quality. • The impacts of factors on RSEI were studied based on geographical detectors. • We utilized the minimum cumulative resistance to construct ecological security. • The study can contribute to global ecological security and sustainable development. The world's ecological security has been significantly threatened because of the rapid growth of urbanization. Recently, the worldwide studies of ecological maintenance and ecological security have become of crucial scientific value as it ensures the balance between human needs and resources. In this paper, the ecological maintenance status of Pingtan Island, Songming County (China), and Yoshkar-Ola (Russia) was studied from the perspective of ecological environment quality and ecological security pattern. The remote sensing-based ecological index (RSEI) was used to study the ecological environment quality, and the geographic detector was used to analyze the impact of six factors on RSEI. The random forest algorithm was used to classify land use from remote sensing images, and an ecological security pattern was constructed based on the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model. The results show that the overall ecological maintenance of Pingtan Island is moderate, which accounts for 32.46% of the total area. The explanatory power of the dryness factor, which is the most influential factor on ecological environmental quality, increased by 3.90% during the five years, and the ecological corridor increased by 8.67 km. Songming County accounted for 33.66% of the area with moderate ecological maintenance. The dryness factor which affects the ecological environment quality is changed into the greenness factor, and its explanatory power has decreased by 3.59%, and the ecological corridor has increased by 57.95 km. Yoshkar-Ola accounted for 28.47% of the area with moderate ecological maintenance. The explanatory power of the dryness factor, which is the biggest factor affecting ecological environment quality, increased by 2.69% during the five-year period, and the length of the ecological corridor increased by 10.64 km. In this paper, remote sensing and GIS methods were used to integrate the ecological security status of inland and coastal areas and different natural zones and to conduct a comparative study on the ecological maintenance status of the three case studies, which can provide decision-making support for regional planning and contribute to global ecological security and sustainable development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Ecological security is defined as if humans' life quality can be guaranteed. • Both availability and affordability should be considered in ecological security. • A two concentric circles model was constructed to evaluate ecological security. • Ecological security coefficients can be calculated quickly by the geometric model. As human influences on natural ecosystems continue to expand, the utilization of natural resources is approaching a threshold where unsustainability threatens the security of human society. As the challenging tradeoffs between human resource demand, ecological sustainability and the security of human society have become more widely recognized, ecological security issues have received extensive attention. However, despite the emergence of substantial body of scientific research on these broader issues, there is still no broad consensus on the definition of ecological security and how it should be applied to mediate resource use and conservation dilemmas. Across the body of published research in this subject area, the criteria and evaluation methods are often so different that the results of different studies are difficult to compare. In this paper, we propose that ecological security refers to the degree to which the condition of ecosystem can support a certain level of socioeconomic development or quality of life. We propose a simple geometric model to quantify ecological security in two dimensions: the availability of ecosystem services and the affordability of humans. The availability dimension is determined by the supply and demand of ecosystem services and the affordability dimension is determined by the cost and the paying capacity balance to obtain ecosystem services. Then, we applied this model to two hypothetical cases to demonstrate its usefulness. The most important feature of the proposed model is that it enables the quick evaluation of important aspects of ecological security for a study area using eight key factors. Although the shape and geographic characteristics of a study area are usually more complex than the hypothetical case, our model can be applied if the conditions are properly simplified or adjusted. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rural settlements constitute the spatial area of region's production, livelihood and ecology. Therefore, it is necessary to study rural settlements' spatial distribution pattern for optimizing the town-villages construction pattern. In this paper, we aimed to improve the microcosmic study of rural settlements and provided theoretical support for the construction of new harmonioussocial society in the countryside. Based on the Google earth satellite images of Baota District in Yanan city in 2015, we obtained the rural settlements feature, arable land feature, road feature, and the river feature after geometric correction, coordinate registration, visual interpretation and vectorization. Then we conducted a quantitative analysis of the rural settlements' spatial distribution differentiation in Baota District using exploratory spatial data analysis model and geography grids analysis method, and identified the regional types basing on multi-dimensional characteristics. The results showedthat, 1) in the spatial distribution aspect, rural settlements in Baota District were characterized by obvious cluster spatial distribution mode, which was shown in the variable density of rural settlements. The density of rural settlements in northern area was higher than that in southern area, and the density higher than five per square kilometers mainly distributed in the north area of Qiaogou town and Chuankou town. In the scale aspect, rural settlements in Baota District showed an obvious spatial cluster distribution mode, and were in a “Y” structure. In the location aspect, rural settlements presented a normal distribution pattern along with the variations of elevation and slope. In the shape aspect, rural settlements had a low complexity in shape and most were stripe type. The shape index was also infected by the road level. The high shape index value distributed along the national level road and provincial level road, the low shape index value distributed along the lower level road; 2) the location of rural settlements closely related to the transportation, 81.42% of the rural settlements were approaching the main road less than 500m. And the location of rural settlements was also affected by the arable land, 59.7% of the rural settlements' farming radius distributed between 700 and 800 meters; 3) the characteristics of the rural settlements distribution pattern in the typical ditch area were influenced by the topographic factors, and the variation of rural settlements scale showed a multi-center characteristic. The distribution pattern of the rural settlements along the National HighwayNo. 210 was greatly affected by economic factors; and 4) based on the multidimensional feature combination matrix, the rural settlements were divided into nine types. The small scale-disadvantage location-aggregation distribution and small scale-disadvantage location-discrete distribution were the main problem areas. The spatial optimization of town-village was a complex and systematic engineering, and it was the first step to analyze the spatial distribution pattern of different area for rural settlements remediation and town-village spatial structure optimization. These results showed that rural settlements optimization should be based on different types, according to local conditions, and the main problem area should be the priority; the multi-center and equidistant distribution characteristics of gully settlements could be used to guide the rural settlements optimization and protect the security of ecology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The redevelopment and regeneration of coal mining subsidence area has always been a hot topic in the field of social and scientific research. Relying on remote sensing and the geographic information system (GIS) platform and considering the opinions of experts from various disciplines, this paper intends to take the landscape planning and design of the coal mining subsidence area in Nanhu of Tangshan as an example to discuss the planning design strategies and substantial implementing approaches to transform abandoned urban land into a national urban wetland park, which specifically includes:① anticipation of geological subsidence disaster and construction of ecological security pattern;②coal ash management;③garbage mountain transformation;④application of eco-technologies for solving ground subsidence, etc., so as to provide technical methods and research ideas for the utilization directions, ecological protection, and construction of urban brownfield in similar areas all over the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Silver Beach is a typical sandy plain coast located in the southeastern city of Beihai in Guangxi province, China. Because of its obvious land-use changes and ecosystem deterioration in recent decades, a sustainable development management and environmental protection project should be urgently proposed. Therefore, the remote-sensing images of Landsat are adopted to analyze the land use evolution and to evaluate its ecological security during the past 35 years in Silver Beach of this paper. The results show: in the period of 1979a-2013a, the areas of constructive land and artificial wetland are considerably increased and mainly transformed from cultivated land and forest land. The areas of cultivated land and forest land are substantially reduced accordingly, but the areas of grassland, water area and intertidal zone have no great extent of variation. Its land use intensities are consistently increased, but its land use diversities are abundant before 2000a and then significant decreased. Overall, the land use evolution presents slow in development speed, strengthen in development intensity, down in ecological richness and fragment in spatial patterns. In terms of ecological security, although there has short-term rising of ecological service value and security in 2006a, the whole structure, stability and ecological service function in Silver Beach are declined, and its vulnerabilities are accordingly increased. As a matter of fact, these results are achieved by shortly to improve the utilization rate of the artificial wetland and the intertidal zone resources with the cost of ecosystem structure and stability destruction. The impact factors of leading to above results are not only climatic factors as air temperature, typhoon, tide, but also even more important human activity factors as urbanization, sea reclamation, fishing, tourism and planning management in the studied time period. In consequence, the research findings from this study should be able to help understand the interacting mechanism among above multiple factors and to quantify respective contribution to land use evolution and its ecological security, which would provide an importantly scientific instruction for the future development management protection in Silver Beach. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the potential of crop type adjustment to improve regional food security, ecological security and net economic benefits is significant for agricultural water management, green production and sustainable development in drylands. Previous studies on the optimization of crop type were mostly concentrated within the region, without considering the impact of interregional food trade on the adjustment of regional crop type. It is difficult to give full play to the advantages of crop type optimization in improving regional food security. This paper introduces the virtual water trade theory into the optimization model of crop type. By quantifying the water footprint, carbon footprint, crop calories and net economic benefits of food crops in Northwest China and Central Asia. On the basis of fully considering farmers' planting willingness in Northwest China and food trade with Central Asian, the relative and absolute comparative advantage index is used as the optimization coefficient of the model. The food security and ecological security of the region, the blue water use efficiency, the green water ratio and the net food efficiency of the provinces (districts) in the region were used as objective functions to construct an open-ended crop type optimization model to optimize the crop type in the region. The results showed that the use of the constructed open crop type optimization model to guide regional food crop type adjustment increased the calories and grey water footprint provided by regional crops by 7.5% and −6.6%, respectively. The provinces in the region have seen varying degrees of improvement in the benefits of blue water use and net economic benefits, particularly in Gansu Province, which have increased by 51.0% and 53.5%, respectively. Due to the effect of crop type adjustment on the regional green water footprint and carbon footprint targets is less than satisfactory. On this basis, effective suggested measures to improve the efficiency of crop green water use and reduce the carbon footprint were proposed. In this study, the combination of relevant measures and grain crop type adjustment can give full play to the role of grain crop type adjustment in alleviating regional water resources and ecological pressure, improving food security, ecological security and sustainable grain production. It is expected to ensure global food security and promote green production and sustainable development of crops. [Display omitted] • Construct optimization model of open planting structure under virtual water trade. • Relative, absolute comparative advantage of 12 units and 5 crops was taken as coefficient. • Crop calories, blue water use benefits and grey water increased by 7.5%, 23.4% and −6.6%. • The study promotes regional food security, water use efficiency and marketing power. • Structural adjustment combined with green water use measures, effect is more obvious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ecological security of arable land is closely related to grain security and social stability. This paper took 12 typical indexes from the aspects of ecological pressure, state and response of arable land considering natural, social and economic conditions to construct the ecological index system of arable land in Panyu District, Guangzhou City, and adopted objective weighting method and comprehensive analysis method to analyze the dynamic change of ecological security and security level of arable land in the study area. The results showed that ecological security pressure value and response value of arable land in Panyu District from 2008 to 2013 increased and the overall ecological security level was low, manifesting the level of "sensitive--risky--sensitive". Specifically, ecological security of arable land in 2008 was sensitive, risky from 2009 to 2011, and the security level rose to the sensitive level again in 2012 and 2013. Ecological restoration and rebuilding of arable land should be enhanced, and ecological security early warning system should be established by protecting quantity and quality of arable land, so as to protect arable land resources effectively, and promote sustainable development of arable land. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For emerging tourism-dominated cities, there is a contradiction between ecological protection and tourism urbanization. This paper explores the causes and solutions of the potential risks that occur in the process of tourism urbanization by simulating the impact of government incentives on tourism urbanization and tourism related-ecological security (TRES). Tourism urbanization in Zhangjiajie has experienced four stages: start-development-stagnation-restoration. This paper analyzes the main obstacles and government incentives at different stages. In the initial stage, government incentives promoting tourism were an efficient method to improve TRES and tourism urbanization. However, with the increase in environmental pressure, ecological overload caused the stagnation of tourism urbanization. The increase in government incentives protected the environment and eventually restored tourism urbanization. Through surveys of tourists and residents, it was confirmed that Zhangjiajie's environmental and tourism problems have improved in recent years. The results indicated that the time mismatch between rapidly developed tourism and the environmental protection policies implemented later caused serious ecological capacity overload. This paper provides a basis for identifying and avoiding ecological risks in tourism-dominated cities to achieve sustainable tourism urbanization. Environmental protection incentives at the end of a rapid development stage are an effective means to avoid ecological traps. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• DPSIRM model was used to evaluate the ecological security of Xilingol grassland. • Remote sensing, meteorology, socio-economic and survey data are used in this paper. • We use grid GIS method to obtain more accurate evaluation results. • We analyzed the spatial-temporal evolution characteristics of ecological security. • Changes in the center of gravity in different security levels are also explored. The quantitative evaluation of the ecological security can reflect the changes in the quality of ecological environment and provide a scientific basis for the formulation of land-use policy and for the construction of the ecological environment. In this study, we selected Xilingol League in Inner Mongolia, China, as the research area, and established the driving force-pressure-state-impact-response-management (DPSIRM) model to evaluate grassland ecological security. The results were as follows: (1) During 2005–2015, the overall trend of ecological security level in the study area increased, with the western region being relatively ecologically insecure and the eastern region being more secure. (2) The spatial distribution trend of ecological security level from west to east was " very serious alerts " → " serious alerts " → " moderate alerts " → " light alerts "→ " no alert ". (3) The " very serious alerts " and " serious alerts " are mainly concentrated in Sonid Left Banner and Sonid Right Banner, but from the perspective of spatial migration of ecological security, unsafe and less safe tend to shift to the northeast. This study provides a new idea for grassland ecological security evaluation research, has important practical significance for understanding the ecological security level of Xilingol grassland area, and will guide the reasonable development and utilization of Xilingol grassland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Along with China's rapid urbanization development process, the severe ecological security problems which brought by the urbanization related activities has gradually caused academic and public discussion. To reach the high-quality development goals set by central government decisions in China, it is necessary to clarify the relationship between urbanization and ecological security, which can provide guidance to explore the path of coordination. On the basis of three major urban agglomerations in China, this paper constructs the comprehensive evaluation system of urbanization and ecological security through multi-source data. By using the Entropy-weight TOPSIS method, cities' urbanization and ecological security levels are calculated. Through the coupling coordination model, the coordination levels between urbanization and ecological security were also analyzed. At the end, Through Kernel estimation and the Markov chain method, the relative-absolute differentiation and the overall evolution trend of the coordination development were also estimated. The research results indicate the following: (1) The core cities' urbanization and ecological security level in the region are relatively high, while the peripheral cities are generally low; (2) The coordination development in the urban agglomerations revealed as a relatively steady progress; (3) The aggregation effect gradually emerged under the coordination development periods in the urban agglomerations; (4) The overall coupling coordination development in urban agglomerations has the possibility of club convergence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In semi-arid northwestern China, the groundwater level continues to decline with the development of the irrigated agriculture, resulting in grassland ecosystem degradation. Threshold water tables play an important role in sustaining both grassland ecology and irrigated agriculture. This paper proposes a new method to calculate the threshold water tables based on the quantification of the transport rate of wetting front, by which the optimal layout of well groups in an irrigation district will be discussed; furthermore, this paper will discuss the advantages of using the threshold water tables as the management target to regulate groundwater pumping and ensure an appropriate water table for the ecological system in the irrigation district. The proposed method is applied to an irrigation district in the West Liaohe River Plain, which is a typical area with mixed agricultural and rural lands in northwestern China. The threshold water table in the case study irrigation district is estimated as 10 m; the interference radii of the pumping wells are 340 m, 270 m and 150 m in three different sub-districts, where the well depth is greater than 100 m, 60–80 m and less than 60 m, and the interference radius values are 225–310 m, 165–225 m and 150 m, respectively. • This paper proposes a new method to calculate the threshold water tables. • Optimizing the layout of pumping wells plays a vital role in ensuring threshold water tables. • Based on the food and ecological security, this article gives the reasonable distances for pumping wells. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper presents the status of sustainable livelihood security index (SLSI) of Karnataka, the most drought prone state in the Southern part of India. Computation of ecological security index, economic efficiency index and social equity index, and finally SLSI were carried out at the district level for the entire state, using empirical data. The selected indicators were first normalised, and then using estimated weights, indices were computed. The results indicate that the state has a very low SLSI with only 27.6% of total geographical area (TGA) and 21.7% of population being placed in the ‘sustainable’ and ‘highly sustainable’ categories (covering 10 districts) while only 34% of the TGA covering six districts falls in the ‘moderately sustainable’ category. The remaining area, confined mostly to the northern parts of the state, comprising 14 districts (51.8% of the state’s TGA) is categorised as ‘less sustainable’ and ‘very less sustainable’ exposing 44.4% (27.14 million) of state’s population to the perils of uncertain rainfall, high soil erosion rates, high social inequality and poor resource use efficiency. There is an urgent need to reorient development programmes and prioritise development investments in these vulnerable districts so that they are provided resources and opportunities to improve their ecological (more forest cover and less soil erosion), economic (higher agricultural productivity) and social (improved health and education facilities and rural infrastructure) status and achieve sustainable levels of livelihood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Improve the traditional emergy ecological footprint by integrating it with DEA-SBM. • Construct an ecological security assessment framework. • Develop the environmental technology investment efficiency index. • Fill the gap on quantitative research of ecological security for megacities. Environmental problems caused by intensive economic development and rapid urbanization have seriously constrained the sustainable development of social economy. Ecological security assessments have become an effective tool for measuring the unsustainability bottom line. Although Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Wuhan, Hefei, Chongqing, and Chengdu are developed megacities in the Yangtze River basin of China, they are located in a fragile ecological environment. The megacities of the Yangtze River basin must achieve sustainable development based on an appropriate assessment of ecological security so that suitable suggestions can be proposed. To quantitatively measure and analyze the ecological security levels in these eight megacities in 2007–2016, this study applied the improved emergy ecological footprint model which optimizes the traditional emergy ecological carrying capacity by adding the new account of the socioeconomic emergy ecological carrying capacity. To improve accuracy, the environmental technology investment efficiency in the socioeconomic account was introduced using the slack based measure model of undesirable output. Then, this study constructed a framework of ecological security assessment. The results showed that from 2007 to 2016, the renewable resources carrying capacity varied greatly among these eight megacities which had an absolute effect on the contribution of emergy ecological carrying capacity. Environmental technology investment efficiency failed to increase. However, in the short term, it effectively increased the socioeconomic carrying capacity for megacities with poor renewable resources. The emergy ecological footprint followed a growth trend in Shanghai, Nanjing, Hangzhou, Hefei, and Chongqing, and a decreasing trend in Suzhou, Wuhan, and Chengdu. Across the study period, ecological deficits were identified in Shanghai, Suzhou, Nanjing, Wuhan, and Hefei. Hangzhou, Chengdu, and Chongqing had ecological surplus because of their superior renewable resources and their ecological security. Nanjing and Wuhan changed their status from sub-secure to secure. Except for Shanghai, the ecological footprint diversity indexes of all other megacities followed a growth trend, indicating that their consumption structure improved. Finally, this paper provides policy recommendations to help decision-makers formulate ecological security and sustainable development strategies. The results of this study provide a scientific reference for other megacities to mitigate ecological pressures by considering their local situations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Proposed the coordinated development of urbanization and ecological safety. • 16 indicators are used to evaluate urbanization and ecological security. • Grey correlation model is used to analyze the relevance between the two systems. • Results provides a reference for high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin. In-depth analysis and discussion of the interactive relationship between urbanization and ecological security are basis and prerequisite for ensuring the coordinated development of urbanization and ecological protection. This paper constructed the evaluation index system of urbanization level from four dimensions (i.e., population, economy, society, space) and ecological safety from three aspects (i.e., pressure, governance, environment). Then, the Urbanization Development Index (UDI) and Ecological Security Index (ESI) of the nine provinces along the Yellow River were calculated, and grey relationship and decoupling model were employed to study the interaction between urbanization and ecological security from 2008 to 2018. The main conclusions are as follows: a) The urbanization level and ecological security level of the nine provinces along the Yellow River show an overall upward trend while the increase rate gradually slows down, in which UDI and ESI increases from 0.24 to 0.58 and 0.30 to 0.41 respectively. b) The correlation degree between the urbanization level and the ecological security system is higher than 0.6, which is between the medium correlation and the extremely strong correlation. Population urbanization has the greatest impact on ecological security, with a correlation value of 0.74. Ecological governance has the strongest restraint on urbanization development and the correlation value is 0.72. c) There is a strong decoupling effect between urbanization and ecological security in the nine provinces along the Yellow River, and the future ecological security will gradually become more restrictive on the development of urbanization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on analyses of key issues concerning watershed ecological security assessment including the subject, content, and methodology of assessment, this paper points out that ecological security should be assessed dynamically at different levels (e.g. watershed and ecosystem levels) with human being as the main assessment subject. Both the functional security and the structural security must be considered in watershed ecological security assessment. In order to reflect the overall and timely security status of the watershed, the PSR (pressure-state-response) method should be employed. Longitudinal Range-Gorge Region (LRGR) was researched as an example. An index system of watershed ecological security assessment has been proposed, which includes structural index, functional index, pressure and response index, and the state of ecological security is analyzed for LRGR in Yunnan Province. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines household livelihoods in highland and lowland communities of the Kali-Khola agricultural watershed in western Nepal on the basis of economic, ecological and social security indicators. Significant differences were found in soil fertility status, pests and diseases management, risk and uncertainties, use of agrochemicals and access to social services. No remarkable variations were found in crop diversification, annual agricultural income and food sufficiency. However, uncertainty and risk in agricultural production is relatively low in highland communities. The findings reveal that agriculture production alone is not a viable livelihood option for agricultural watershed communities in Nepal. The households growing crops with hired labour have relatively sustainable livelihoods in Nepal''s agricultural watersheds. Insufficient agricultural land, insufficient working manpower within a family, and lack of access to ecological agricultural services are prime factors in being livelihood insecure in agricultural watershed communities. Therefore, long-term policies and plans need to be developed for the empowerment of local farmers and to support rural livelihoods with adaptable and flexible income-generating strategies, resilient resource management institutions and enhancement of knowledge, skills and social capital. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Global ecological degradation and rapid economic growth has increased the focus on the sustainable relationship between ecological security and economic development. This paper evaluated and partitioned Guizhou Province's ecological security and economic development, and discussed the population, industrial structure and land use of each zone in 2010 and 2015. An ecological security assessment was performed based on land use. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to evaluate the level of economic development. Spatially, the ecological security level was high in the south and low in the north of the province, while economic development in central regions was higher than in surrounding areas. The ecological security and wealth gaps were widening. In this study, Guizhou Province was partitioned into the Coordinated Development Zone (CDZ), the Ecological Risk Zone (ERZ), the Economic Poverty Zone (EPZ), and the Dual Pressure Zone (DPZ) based on the ecological security index and economic development index. The characteristics of the population, industrial structure, and land use in the zones showed that generally: (1) Populations became more aggregated in prosperous regions, while ecological security was higher in regions with sparse populations. (2) Regions with a high proportion of primary industry (over 25% in 2010 and over 23% in 2015) lagged economically, while regions with a high proportion of secondary industry (over 35% in 2010 and over 33% in 2015) were prosperous. In poor regions, tertiary industry had less ability to drive economic growth than secondary industry. (3) Nearly half of the communities with below-median values in the ecological security index had a grassland proportion between 20% and 32%, but most of the communities with above-median values in the ecological security index had a grassland proportion of less than 20%. Most communities with better ecological security had a high proportion of forestlands (over 52% in 2010 and over 53% in 2015), and a low proportion of croplands (below 30% in 2010 and below 27% in 2015). The communities with low ecological security showed the opposite pattern. The expansion of mining fields, transportation lands, and settlements on built-up lands was conducive to economic development, but they threatened regional ecological security. Different strategies are proposed for the four zones, based on the analysis. In the CDZ, priority should be given to developing tertiary industry that will improve ecological security. In the ERZ, controls over resource-based industry should be strengthened to implement sustainable industrial development and the focus on ecological restoration and environmental governance should be increased. In the EPZ, the development of the primary, secondary and tertiary industries should be integrated based on tourism, and ecological, environmental and biological resources. In the DPZ, the way of transforming lucid waters and lush mountain into invaluable assets should be explored. The Grain for Green Project should be taken seriously and ecological restoration should be combined with poverty alleviation. • Characteristics of different zones were summarized after partitioning. • Prosperous zones have a population aggregation trend. • The secondary industry effectively promotes the economic development. • Zones with extensive forestlands and small croplands have better ecological security. • Cleaner production industries improve ecological security and economic development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper argues that community ecological security (CES) includes personal security, public safety and humanistic ecological security. The personal security is to protect the resident's life and physical health, public safety means that the residents don't suffer from physical damages or property damages in daily life, and humanistic ecological security is interpreted as that ideas of harmony, fairness, balance implied in ecology are used to coordinate the social relations of settlements, alleviate the increasingly serious social problems of residential space differentiation. In light of serious community ecological safety issues in China, the corresponding measures are pointed out: road system of "separating people and vehicles"; consideration of disaster prevention and mitigation in residential space design; the community construction from culture, environment, management and service; response to the residential space differentiation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]