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Wetlands are important CO2 sinks and methane sources, and their seasonality and phenological cycle play an essential role in understanding the carbon budget. However, given the spatial heterogeneity of wetland landscapes and the coarser spatial resolution of satellites, the phenological retrievals of wetlands are challenging. Here we examined the phenology of wetlands from 30 m harmonized Landsat/Sentinel-2 (LandSent30) and 500 m MODIS satellite observations using the ground phenology network PhenoCam as a benchmark. This study used all 11 available wetland PhenoCam sites (about 30 site years), covering diverse wetland types from different climate zones. We found that the LandSent30-based phenology results were in overall higher consistency with the PhenoCam results compared to MODIS, which could be related to the better explanation capacity of LandSent30 data in the heterogeneous landscapes of wetlands. This also means that the LandSent30 has an advantage over the 500 m MODIS regarding wetland vegetation phenological retrievals. It should be noted that the LandSent30 did not show a greatly improved performance, which could be related to the specificity and complexity of the wetlands landscape. We also illustrated the potential effects of the location and observation direction of PhenoCam cameras, the selection of Region of Interest (ROI), as well as the landscape composition of the site. Overall, this study highlights the complexity of wetland phenology from both ground and remote sensing observations at different scales, which paves the road for understanding the role of wetlands in global climate change and provides a basis for understanding the real phenological changes of wetland surfaces. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Deciduous broadleaf forests (DBF) are an extremely widespread vegetation type in the global ecosystem and an indicator of global environmental change; thus, they require accurate phenological monitoring. However, there is still a lack of systematic understanding of the sensitivity of phenological retrievals for DBF in terms of different spatial resolution data and proxy indices. In this study, 79 globally distributed DBF PhenoCam Network sites (total 314 site-years, 2013–2018) were used as the reference data (based on green chromaticity coordinates, GCC). Different spatial resolutions (30 m Landsat and Sentinel-2 data, and 500 m MCD43A4 data) and satellite remote sensing vegetation indices (normalized difference vegetation index, NDVI; enhanced vegetation index, EVI; and near-infrared reflectance of vegetation, NIRV) were compared to find the most suitable data and indices for DBF phenological retrievals. The results showed that: (1) for different spatial resolutions, both 30 m Landsat–Sentinel-2 data and 500 m MODIS data accurately captured (R2 > 0.8) DBF phenological metrics (i.e., the start of the growing season, SOS, and the end of the growing season, EOS), which are associated with the comparatively homogeneous landscape pattern of DBF; (2) for SOS, the NIRv index was closer to GCC than EVI and NDVI, and it showed a slight advantage over EVI and a significant advantage over NDVI. However, for EOS, NDVI performed best, outperforming EVI and NIRv; and (3) for different phenological metrics, the 30 m data showed a significant advantage for detecting SOS relative to the 500 m data, while the 500 m MCD43A4 outperformed the 30 m data for EOS. This was because of the differences between the wavebands used for GCC and for the satellite remote sensing vegetation indices calculations, as well as the different sensitivity of spatial resolution data to bare soil. This study provides a reference for preferred data and indices for broad scale accurate monitoring of DBF phenology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The cooling degree days (CDDs) can indicate the hot climatic impacts on energy consumption and thermal environment comfort effectively. Nevertheless, seldom studies focused on the spatiotemporal characteristics, influence factors, and simulation of global CDDs. This study analyzed the spatial–temporal characteristics of global CDDs from 1970 to 2018 and in the future, explored five determinants, and simulated CDDs and their interannual changing rates. The results showed that the global CDDs were generally higher at lower latitudes and altitudes. Many places experienced significant positive changes of CDDs (p < 0.05), and the rates became larger at lower latitudes and attitudes. In the future, most CDDs had the sustainability trends. Besides, significant negative partial correlations existed between not only CDDs but also their variation rates with latitude, altitude, and average enhanced vegetation index in the summer, while positive with the annual PM2.5, distance to large waterbodies (p = 0.000). Moreover, the values and variation rates of CDDs can be deduced using the generalized regression neural network method. The root-mean-square errors were 231.73 °C * days and 1.71 °C * days * year−1, respectively. These conclusions were helpful for the energy-saving for cooling with the climate change and optimization of thermal environment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban growth and shrinkage constitute the overall pattern of growing urbanization across the globe. Studies on urban vacant land (UVL) are few, and have proved to be mainly rudimentary and subjective. This paper first presents the definition of UVL based on bibliometric analysis. Typology, morphology, proximate causes, and the multiple functions of UVL are then analyzed at parcel, transect, city, and national levels based on an international review. Results show that UVL can be categorized by land cover, land usage, and land ownership. Worldwide, UVL has been widespread and extensive. For example, the occurrence probabilities of UVL in the cases of Guangzhou and New York are 8.46%–8.88% and 3.17%–5.08%, respectively. The average vacancy rate of residential land amounts to 11.48% in 65 U.S. cities. Generally, UVL shows fragmentation and irregular shape, and significant spatial differences exist at parcel, transect, city, and national levels. Proximate causes, such as excessive land division, irregularly shaped land parcels, decreases in resident population, deindustrialization, land speculation, insufficient investment, and environmental concerns, can all result in UVL. Currently, UVL has become a gray area of social, economic, and ecological space. However, it can also be considered a potential resource for enhancing urban sustainability. Policy implications to promote urban sustainability using monitoring, control, and differential revitalization of UVL are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed to accurately study the intra-annual spatiotemporal variation in the surface urban heat island intensities (SUHIIs) in 1449 cities in China. First, China was divided into five environmental regions. Then, the SUHIIs were accurately calculated based on the modified definitions of the city extents and their corresponding nearby rural areas. Finally, we explored the spatiotemporal variation of the mean, maximum, and minimum values, and ranges of SUHIIs from several aspects. The results showed that larger annual mean daytime SUHIIs occurred in hot-humid South China and cold-humid northeastern China, and the smallest occurred in arid and semiarid west China. The seasonal order of the SUHIIs was summer > spring > autumn > winter in all the temperate regions except west China. The SUHIIs were obviously larger during the rainy season than the dry season in the tropical region. Nevertheless, significant differences were not observed between the two seasons within the rainy or dry periods. During the daytime, the maximum SUHIIs mostly occurred in summer in each region, while the minimum occurred in winter. A few cold island phenomena existed during the nighttime. The maximum SUHIIs were generally significantly positively correlated with the minimum SUHIIs during the daytime, nighttime and all-day in all environmental regions throughout the year and the four seasons. Moreover, significant correlation scarcely existed between the daytime and nighttime ranges of the SUHIIs. In addition, the daytime SUHIIs were also insignificantly correlated with the nighttime SUHIIs in half of the cases. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The thermal environment is closely related to human well-being. Determinants of surface urban heat islands (SUHIs) have been extensively studied. Nevertheless, some research fields remain blank or have conflicting findings, which need to be further addressed. Particularly, few studies focus on drivers of SUHIs in massive cities with different sizes under various contexts at large scales. Using multisource data, we explored 11 determinants of surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) for 1449 cities in different ecological contexts throughout China in 2010, adopting the Spearman and partial correlation analysis and machine learning method. The main results were as follows: (1) Significant positive partial correlations existed between daytime SUHII and the differences in nighttime light intensity and built-up intensity between cities and their corresponding villages except in arid or semiarid western China. The differences in the enhanced vegetation index were generally partially negatively correlated with daytime and nighttime SUHII. The differences in white sky albedo were usually partially negatively correlated with nighttime SUHII. The mean air temperature was partially positively correlated with nighttime SUHII in 40% of cases. Only a few significant partial relationships existed between SUHII and urban area, total population, and differences in aerosol optical depth. The explanation rates during daytime were larger than during nighttime in 72% of cases. The largest and smallest rates occurred during summer days in humid cold northeastern China (63.84%) and in southern China (10.44%), respectively. (2) Both the daytime and nighttime SUHII could be well determined by drivers using the machine learning method. The RMSE ranged from 0.49°C to 1.54°C at a national scale. The simulation SUHII values were always significantly correlated with the actual SUHII values. The simulation accuracies were always higher during nighttime than daytime. The highest accuracies occurred in central-northern China and were lowest in western China during both daytime and nighttime. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpreting the relationship between urban heat island (UHI) and urban vegetation is a basis for understanding the impacts of underlying surfaces on UHI. The calculation of UHI intensity (UHII) requires observations from paired stations in both urban and rural areas. Due to the limited number of paired meteorological stations, many studies have used remotely sensed land surface temperature, but these time-series land surface temperature data are often heavily affected by cloud cover and other factors. These factors, together with the algorithm for inversion of land surface temperature, lead to accuracy problems in detecting the UHII, especially in cities with weak UHII. Based on meteorological observations from the Oklahoma Mesonet, a world-class network, we quantified the UHII and trends in eight cities of the Great Plains, USA, where data from at least one pair of urban and rural meteorological stations were available. We examined the changes and variability in urban temperature, UHII, vegetation condition (as measured by enhanced vegetation index, EVI), and evapotranspiration (ET). We found that both UHI and urban cold islands (UCI) occurred among the eight cities during 2000–2014 (as measured by impervious surface area). Unlike what is generally considered, UHII in only three cities significantly decreased as EVI and ET increased (p<0.1), indicating that the UHI or UCI cannot be completely explained simply from the perspective of the underlying surface. Increased vegetative cover (signaled by EVI) can increase ET, and thereby effectively mitigate the UHI. Each study station clearly showed that the underlying surface or vegetation affects urban-rural temperature, and that these factors should be considered during analysis of the UHI effect over time. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Given the considerable influences of urbanization on near-surface air temperature (Ta) and surface skin temperature (Ts) at local and regional scales, we investigated the biogeophysical effects of urbanization on Taand Ts in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei (BTH) region of China, a typical rapidly urbanizing area, using the weather research and forecasting model (WRF). Two experiments were conducted using satellite-derived realistic areal fraction land cover data in 2010 and 1990 as well as localized parameters (e.g. albedo and leaf area index). Without considering anthropogenic heat, experimental differences indicated a regional biogeophysical warming of 0.15 °C (0.16 °C) in summer Ta (Ts), but a negligible warming in winter Ta (Ts). Sensitivity analyses also showed a stronger magnitude of local warming in summer than in winter. Along with an increase of 10% in the urban fraction, local Ta (Ts) increases of 0.185 °C (0.335 °C), 0.212 °C (0.464 °C), and 0.140 °C (0.220 °C) were found at annual, summer, and winter scales, respectively, according to a space-for-time substitution method. The sensitivity analyses will be beneficial to get a rough biogeophysical warming estimation of future urbanization projections. Furthermore, a decomposed temperature metric (DTM) method was applied for the attribution analyses of the change in Ts induced by urbanization. Our results showed that the decrease in evapotranspiration-induced latent heat played a dominate role in biogeophysical warming due to urbanization in BTH, indicating that increasing green space could alleviate warming effects, especially in summer. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study endeavoured to accurately estimate the effects of urbanization on changes in temperatures during 1977–2014 throughout China. To this end, we (a) classified the stations using improved standards, (b) homogenized the mean minimum (Tmin), mean maximum (Tmax), and mean temperature (Tm) data series, (c) identified regions with different temperature trends based on the modified methodology, and analysed the regional changes in the background rural temperatures, (d) explored the relationships between the temperature trend effects of urbanization and the three indices of the urbanization intensity, and (a) calculated the contribution from urbanization on the regional scale. The results indicated the following: (a) After homogenization, several adjustment amplitudes were larger than 1 °C, the maximum value of which reached 7.84 °C. (b) China was divided into six regions with different rural temperature trends. Rural temperatures significantly increased throughout China with annual Tmin, Tmax and Tm changing rates of 0.424, 0.339, and 0.352 °C/decade, respectively. Throughout all of China, the maximum rates for Tmax, Tmin, and Tm occurred during the spring and the minimum rates for Tmax and Tm occurred during the summer, while that for Tmin was slightly lower in the winter than during the summer. (c) Significant correlations did not always exist between the urbanization‐contributed temperature‐changing rates and the indices of urbanization intensity, and the correlation coefficients varied under different conditions. These values were both positive and negative. The changes in the areas of the built‐up regions constituted the best correlation factors. (d) The percentages of the contributions of urbanization to the mean annual Tmin, Tmax, and Tm were −0.08, 0.21, and −0.09%, respectively. These results are beneficial for understanding the effects of urbanization on regional or global climate change to some extent. Six regions were identified with different rural temperature change trends in China. The maximum rates of the rural temperature occurred in spring in the whole China. Urbanization effects were complex on the variation trends of temperatures in China, and the amounts were neglectful on the regional scale in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate homogeneous geodesics in a class of homogeneous spaces called M-spaces, which are defined as follows. Let G / K be a generalized flag manifold with K=C(S)=S×K1, where S is a torus in a compact simple Lie group G and K1 is the semisimple part of K. Then, the associatedM-space is the homogeneous space G/K1. These spaces were introduced and studied by H. C. Wang in 1954. We prove that for various classes of M-spaces the only g.o. metric is the standard metric. For other classes of M-spaces we give either necessary, or necessary and sufficient conditions, so that a G-invariant metric on G/K1 is a g.o. metric. The analysis is based on properties of the isotropy representation m=m1⊕⋯⊕ms of the flag manifold G / K [as Ad(K)-modules]. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The authors compute non-zero structure constants of the full flag manifold M = SO(7)/ T with nine isotropy summands, then construct the Einstein equations. With the help of computer they get all the forty-eight positive solutions (up to a scale ) for SO(7)/ T, up to isometry there are only five G-invariant Einstein metrics, of which one is Kähler Einstein metric and four are non-Kähler Einstein metrics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the generalized Abreu equation in n-dimensional polytopes and derive some differential inequalities for homogeneous toric bundles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, because of increasing human activities, ecosystems have been substantially disturbed and their service functions have been greatly compromised. Based on the effect of land use changes on the major ecosystem services, we estimated the ecosystem comprehensive anthropogenic disturbance index (ECADI) and analyzed the spatio-temporal characteristics of changes in the ECADI in China from 1990 to 2010. The average ECADI of the major ecosystem function zones in China in 2010 is approximately 0.382. The ECADI of Northeast China and North China is slightly higher than that of Northwest China and Southwest China. Most zones have slight changes in the ECADI. The average increases of ECADI in the major ecosystem function zones in China from 1990 to 2000 and from 2000 to 2010 are 0.0024 and 0.0002, respectively. The increase is mainly due to reclamation and urbanization, whereas the decrease is due to the implementation of ecosystem protection policies. During the last 20 years, the ECADI of water resources conservation zones increased first, and then stopped. The ECADI of soil conservation zones increased first, and then declined. The ECADI of sandstorm prevention zones, biodiversity conservation zones and flooding mitigation zones increased continuously. Our results may provide proposals to the government regarding land use planning and ecosystem protection plans in the major ecosystem zones. The major ecosystem function zones in the western part of China have been protected effectively. However, the major ecosystem function zones in the eastern part of China require more protection in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We introduce and study the equiaffine symmetric hyperspheres. For the first step we consider the locally strongly convex ones. In fact, by the idea used by H. Naitoh, we provide in this paper a direct proof of the complete classification for those affine symmetric hyperspheres. Then, via an earlier result of the first author, we are able to provide an alternative proof for the classification theorem of the affine hypersurface with parallel Fubini-Pick forms, which has already been established by Z. J. Hu et al. in a totally different way. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use change is one of the main drivers of biodiversity loss. In the last 20 years, China's land use pattern has undergone profound changes. This study constructs an Ecosystem Comprehensive Anthropogenic Disturbance Index (ECADI) to assess disturbance impacts of land use change between 1990 and 2010 on biodiversity conservation priority areas at national and regional scales. Four levels of biodiversity conservation areas were categorized: generally important areas, moderately important areas, important areas, and very important areas. The results indicated a higher ECADI value in 2010 in Central and Eastern China than in Western China, and the values of the moderately important, important and very important regions were lower than the average value of the whole country at all levels. Notably, in recent 20 years, the change extent of ECADI values in Central and Eastern China were much greater compared with that in Western China, and ECADI values in the moderately important, important and very important biodiversity conservation areas all showed increasing trends, with the increasing extent lower than that of whole China at all levels. Due to human activities such as urbanization in Eastern China and cropland reclamation in Northeast China and Xinjiang, ECADI values showed a medium increase trend (the change rate was about 1%-5% in 10 years), which indicated the need for more conservation efforts in those regions. However, ECADI values in the Loess Plateau presented a low decline trend (the change rate was about −1% to −0.1% in 10 years) after 2000 because of the obvious effectiveness of Green for Grain Project. Furthermore, the variation was negligible in the Tibetan Plateau. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a generalized flag manifold M = G/ K of a compact connected simple Lie group G whose isotropy representation decomposes into more than five isotropy summands, there are only a few results about the homogeneous Einstein metrics on M. Finding the invariant Einstein metrics on generalized flag manifolds, there are two difficulties. One is computing the non-zero structure constants, the other is computing the Gröbner basis of the system of Einstein equations. In this paper, we give a method (Theorem A) which can be used to calculate structure constants of generalized flag manifolds with any number of isotropy summands. In this direction we present invariant Einstein metrics on some flag manifolds of exceptional groups with six isotropy summands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We prove a blow-up formula for Morse–Novikov cohomology on a compact locally conformal Kähler manifold. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Land cover change affects surface radiation budget and energy balance by changing surface albedo and further impacts the regional and global climate. In this article, high spatial and temporal resolution satellite products were used to analyze the driving mechanism for surface albedo change caused by land cover change during 1990-2010. In addition, the annual-scale radiative forcing caused by surface albedo changes in China's 50 ecological regions were calculated to reveal the biophysical mechanisms of land cover change affecting climate change at regional scale. Our results showed that the national land cover changes were mainly caused by land reclamation, grassland desertification and urbanization in past 20 years, which were almost induced by anthropogenic activities. Grassland and forest area decreased by 0.60% and 0.11%, respectively. The area of urban and farmland increased by 0.60% and 0.19%, respectively. The mean radiative forcing caused by land cover changes during 1990-2010 was 0.062 W/m in China, indicating a warming climate effect. However, spatial heterogeneity of radiative forcing was huge among different ecological regions. Farmland conversing to urban construction land, the main type of land cover change for the urban and suburban agricultural ecological region in Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region, caused an albedo reduction by 0.00456 and a maximum positive radiative forcing of 0.863 W/m, which was presented as warming climate effects. Grassland and forest conversing to farmland, the main type of land cover change for the temperate humid agricultural and wetland ecological region in Sanjiang Plain, caused an albedo increase by 0.00152 and a maximum negative radiative forcing of 0.184 W/m, implying cooling climate effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Samples were collected at 71 sites in the Yellow River Delta Natural Reserve in December 2010 to represent soil conditions before and after the Yellow River (YR) diversion. The As, Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, and Ni concentrations were measured to determine metal contamination levels. Results suggest that Cd concentrations were significantly higher after the YR diversion than before. The As, Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn soil contamination indices did not exceed contamination levels, although the heavy metal content increased after the YR diversion. The mean concentrations of these heavy metals were lower than the Class I criteria. Correlation analysis shows significant correlations between As and Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb, and Zn concentrations both before and after the YR diversion. However, no significant correlations were observed between heavy metal concentration and pH before the diversion, and no heavy metal concentration was correlated with salinity. The principal component analysis indicates that these trace elements, including As, were closely correlated with each other and therefore likely originated from shared pollution sources before the diversion. These results are useful for assessing the heavy metal contamination and proposing feasible suggestions to improve soil quality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we study the global singular symplectic flops related to the following affine hypersurface with cyclic quotient singularities, where b = 1 appears in Mori's minimal model program and b ≠ 1 is a new class of singularities in symplectic birational geometry. We prove that two symplectic 3-orbifolds which are singular flops to each other have isomorphic Ruan cohomology rings. The proof is based on the symplectic cutting argument and virtual localization technique. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper we provide a characterization of structural equigeodesics on generalized flag manifolds with second Betti number b( G / K) = 1, and give examples of structural equigeodesics on generalized flag manifolds of the exceptional Lie groups F, E and E with three isotropy summands. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering the Li-normalization of the graph of a convex function, we derive the PDEs of hypersurfaces with prescribed Gauss-Kronecker curvature. We solve two linked Monge-Ampère equations with Dirichlet boundary conditions and thus construct hyperbolic Li hypersurfaces such that their Gauss-Kronecker curvatures are the prescribed functions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interpreting the number of ramified covering of a Riemann surface by Riemann surfaces as the relative Gromov–Witten invariants and applying a gluing formula, we derive a recursive formula for the number of ramified covering of a Riemann surface by Riemann surface with elementary branch points and prescribed ramification type over a special point. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We extend a procedure for solving particular fourth order PDEs by splitting them into two linked second order Monge–Ampère equations. We use this for the global study of Blaschke hypersurfaces with prescribed Gauss–Kronecker curvature. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Today, social network services (SNS) advertising is frequently utilized by enterprises to communicate with consumers as it provides the best marketing effect using low-cost media. Since the value of SNS is increasing, managers need to look for more effective methods of utilizing the existing SNS channels. This study aims to provide suggestions for attracting customers and gaining an advantage amid the stiff competition among similar golf courses. To achieve the goal of this study, a questionnaire-based survey was conducted at six golf resorts in South Korea where SNS advertising has been used to enhance consumer experiences. The study found that SNS advertising and online word of mouth regarding golf resorts have a positive effect on emotive, social, and price values. Moreover, SNS advertising for golf resorts had a positive effect on the quality function value, while online word of mouth had no effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The impact of human activities on vegetation has been the focus of much research, but the impact on radiation energy through surface albedo associated with vegetation greenness and length of the growth season is still not well documented. Based on the land cover data for the years 2000 and 2015, this study first divided the land cover change in Beijing from 2000 to 2015 into five types according to the impact of human activities and vegetation resilience, namely, old urban areas (OU), urban expansion areas (UE), cropland (CP), mixed pixel areas (MP, which means the land covers other than urban expansion which had changed from 2000 to 2015), and the residual vegetation cover areas (pure pixels (PP), dominated by natural and seminatural vegetation, such as grassland, forest, and wetland). Then, we calculated the direct radiative forcing from the albedo change from 2000 to 2015 and analyzed the effect of vegetation on the albedo under different land cover types based on multi-resource Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products of vegetation, albedo, and solar radiation. The results showed that the most typical changes in land cover were from urban expansion. By comparing the PP with the four human-affected land cover types (OU, UE, MP, and CP), we confirmed that the radiative forcing increment between 2001–2003 and 2013–2015 in PP (0.01 W/m2) was much smaller than that in the four human-affected land cover types (the mean increment was 0.92 W/m2). This study highlights that human activities affected vegetation growth. This, in turn, brought changes in the albedo, thereby enhancing radiative forcing in Beijing during 2000–2015. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An unprecedented reforestation process happened in the Loess Plateau, China due to the ecological restoration project 'Grain for Green Project', which has affected regional carbon and water cycles as well as brought climate feedbacks. Accurately mapping the area and spatial distribution of emerged forests in the Loess Plateau over time is essential for forest management but a very challenging task. Here we investigated the changes of forests in the Loess Plateau after the forest reconstruction project. First, we used a pixel and rule-based algorithm to identify and map the annual forests from 2007 to 2017 in the Loess Plateau by integrating 30 m Landsat data and 25 m resolution PALSAR data in this study. Then, we carried out the accuracy assessment and comparison with several existing forest products. The overall accuracy (OA) and Kappa coefficient of the resultant map, were about 91% and 0.77 in 2010, higher than those of the other forest products (FROM-GLC, GlobeLand30, GLCF-VCF, JAXA, and OU-FDL) with OA ranging from 83.57% to 87.96% and Kappa coefficients from 0.52 to 0.68. Based on the annual forest maps, we found forest area in the Loess Plateau has increased by around 15,000 km2 from 2007 to 2017. This study clearly demonstrates the advantages of data fusion between PALSAR and Landsat images for monitoring forest cover dynamics in the Loess Plateau, and the resultant forest maps with lower uncertainty would contribute to the regional forest management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unprecedented human-induced land cover changes happened in China after the Reform and Opening-up in 1978, matching with the era of Landsat satellite series. However, it is still unknown whether Landsat data can effectively support retrospective analysis of land cover changes in China over the past four decades. Here, for the first time, we conduct a systematic investigation on the availability of Landsat data in China, targeting its application for retrospective and continuous monitoring of land cover changes. The latter is significant to assess impact of land cover changes, and consequences of past land policy and management interventions. The total and valid observations (excluding clouds, cloud shadows, and terrain shadows) from Landsat 5/7/8 from 1984 to 2017 were quantified at pixel scale, based on the cloud computing platform Google Earth Engine (GEE). The results show higher intensity of Landsat observation in the northern part of China as compared to the southern part. The study provides an overall picture of Landsat observations suitable for satellite-based annual land cover monitoring over the entire country. We uncover that two sub-regions of China (i.e., Northeast China-Inner Mongolia-Northwest China, and North China Plain) have sufficient valid observations for retrospective analysis of land cover over 30 years (1987–2017) at an annual interval; whereas the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plain (MLYP) and Xinjiang (XJ) have sufficient observations for annual analyses for the periods 1989–2017 and 2004–2017, respectively. Retrospective analysis of land cover is possible only at a two-year time interval in South China (SC) for the years 1988–2017, Xinjiang (XJ) for the period 1992–2003, and the Tibetan Plateau (TP) during 2004–2017. For the latter geographic regions, land cover dynamics can be analyzed only at a three-year interval prior to 2004. Our retrospective analysis suggest that Landsat-based analysis of land cover dynamics at an annual interval for the whole country is not feasible; instead, national monitoring at two- or three-year intervals could be achievable. This study provides a preliminary assessment of data availability, targeting future continuous land cover monitoring in China; and the code is released to the public to facilitate similar data inventory in other regions of the world. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the largest among terrestrial ecosystems, forests are vital to maintaining ecosystem services and regulating regional climate. The area and spatial distribution of trees in densely forested areas have been focused on in the past few decades, while sparse forests in agricultural zones, so-called agroforests or trees outside forests (TOF), have usually been ignored or missed in existing forest mapping efforts, despite their important role in regulating agricultural ecosystems. We combined Landsat and PALSAR data to map forests in a typical agricultural zone in the North China Plain. The resultant map, based on PALSAR and Landsat (PL) data, was also compared with five existing medium resolution (30–100 m) forest maps from PALSAR (JAXA forest map) and Landsat: NLCD-China, GlobeLand30, ChinaCover, and FROM-GLC. The results show that the PL-based forest map has the highest accuracy (overall accuracy of 95 ± 1% with a 95% confidence interval, and Kappa coefficient of 0.86) compared to those forest maps based on single Landsat or PALSAR data in the North China Plain (overall accuracy ranging from 85 ± 2% to 92 ± 1%). All forest maps revealed higher accuracy in densely forested mountainous areas, while the PL-based and JAXA forest maps showed higher accuracy in the plain, as the higher omission errors existed in only the Landsat-based forest maps. Moreover, we found that the PL-based forest map can capture more patched forest information in low forest density areas. This means that the radar data have advantages in capturing forests in the typical agricultural zones, which tend to be missing in published Landsat-based only forest maps. Given the significance of agroforests in regulating ecosystem services of the agricultural ecosystem and improving carbon stock estimation, this study implies that the integration of PALSAR and Landsat data can provide promising agroforest estimates in future forest inventory efforts, targeting a comprehensive understanding of ecosystem services of agroforests and a more accurate carbon budget inventory. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]