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Ecological Conservation Redline (ECR) is a national strategy of ecological conservation required by Territorial Spatial Planning in China. Previous studies mainly focused on the techniques and methods of delineating ECR, without an integrated assessment of the rationality of ECR from a large scale like a province. Using Zhejiang as a case, this study attempted to conduct an integrated assessment of ECR from the dimensions of element (land uses), structure (landscape patterns), and function (ecosystem services) considering multiple conservation objectives, e.g., stabilizing area, improving quality, and maintaining function. Regarding elements, forestlands and water bodies accounted for 87.17% and 4.57% of ECR in mountainous and water-rich Zhejiang. Regarding structure, ECR exhibited a high patch contagion and a low Shannon's diversity index compared with non-ECR, indicating a high integrity and low diversity within ECR. Regarding function, three major types of ecosystem services (ESs), namely habitat quality, water retention, and soil conservation, exhibited a similar spatial pattern and a synergic relationship within ECR areas. The ESs are generally high in southern Zhejiang considering the rich natural endowments. The extremely important areas with high ESs accounted for 62.97% of ECR areas, mostly concentrated in the mountainous regions. The findings provided insights to optimize ECR delineation and management for Territorial Spatial Planning. • Effectiveness of Ecological Conservation Redline (ECR) in China was evaluated. • Landscape metric and InVEST were used to assess element-structure-function ECR. • ECR is dominated by forestland and fragmented in marginal areas in Zhejiang. • ECR element-structure-function (ecosystem services) exhibit positive correlations. • ECR results have implications for managing and planning global protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

Peatlands play important ecological, economic and cultural roles in human well-being. Although considered sensitive to climate change and anthropogenic pressures, the spatial extent of peatlands is poorly constrained. We report the development of an improved global peatland map, PEATMAP, based on a meta-analysis of geospatial information collated from a variety of sources at global, regional and national levels. We estimate total global peatland area to be 4.23 million km 2 , approximately 2.84% of the world land area. Our results suggest that previous global peatland inventories are likely to underestimate peat extent in the tropics, and to overestimate it in parts of mid- and high-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. Global wetland and soil datasets are poorly suited to estimating peatland distribution. For instance, tropical peatland extents are overestimated by Global Lakes and Wetlands Database – Level 3 (GLWD-3) due to the lack of ground-truthing data; and underestimated by the use of histosols to represent peatlands in the Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD) v1.2, as large areas of swamp forest peat in the humid tropics are omitted. PEATMAP and its underlying data are freely available as a potentially useful tool for scientists and policy makers with interests in peatlands or wetlands. PEATMAP's data format and file structure are intended to allow it to be readily updated when previously undocumented peatlands are found and mapped, and when regional or national land cover maps are updated and refined. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...

The combination of climate change and social and ecological factors will increase risks societies face from hydrometeorological hazards (HMH). Reducing these risks is typically achieved through the deployment of engineered (or grey) infrastructure but increasingly, nature-based solutions (NBS) are being considered. Most risk assessment frameworks do not allow capturing well the role NBS can play in addressing all components of risk, i.e., the hazard characteristics and the exposure and vulnerability of social-ecological systems. Recently, the Vulnerability and Risk assessment framework developed to allow the assessment of risks in the context of NBS implementation (VR-NBS framework) was proposed. Here, we carry out the first implementation of this framework using five case study areas in Europe which are exposed to various HMH. Our results show that we can demonstrate the effect NBS have in terms of risk reduction and that this can be achieved by using a flexible library of indicators that allows to capture the specificities of each case study hazard, social and ecological circumstances. The approach appears to be more effective for larger case study areas, but further testing is required in a broader variety of contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] more...