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Wang Lingguan is a significant deity in Chinese Daoist beliefs and folk worship. His belief’s formation and proliferation are rooted in specific spatial contexts. This paper introduces a spatial perspective to provide a fresh interpretation of Wang Lingguan’s belief, examining it through the lenses of ritual, temple, and geography. In Daoist rituals that bridged sacred and secular spaces, Wang Lingguan emerged as Sa Shoujian’s protector, manifesting his divine power to devotees. For the purposes of ritual simplification and spatial solidification, believers constructed Daoist Temples as emblems of sacredness and reimagined Wang Lingguan as the protector of these temples in their design. The active involvement of the Ming royal family in building Daoist Temples significantly contributed to establishing regional belief centers for Wang Lingguan. During the Qing Dynasty, although Wang Lingguan’s royal patronage waned, his belief spread across most of China, becoming more localized and secularized. The dynamic interplay of ritual, temple, and geographical factors illuminates the establishment, dissemination, and evolution of Wang Lingguan’s belief throughout China.

Forest landscape restoration and ecosystem of Loess Plateau have enhanced prominently, since the policy implementation (1999) of the Grain for Green Project in China. Land ecological security (LES) performs an extremely critical function for protecting vulnerable land resources and sustaining forest ecosystem stability. Predecessors’ studies substantially concentrate on biophysical and meteorologic variables using numerous grounded methodologies, little research has been launched on systematic natural-socio-economic-ecological relationships and how these contributions and regulations for LES evaluation. Here, pressure-state-response (PSR) model was used to establish the evaluation system of LES in regional-scale, and LES was classified into five levels measured by ecological security index (S), including high (S ≥ 0.75), medium−high (0.65 ≤ S < 0.75), medium (0.55 ≤ S < 0.65), medium−low (0.45 ≤ S < 0.55), and low (S < 0.45) level, for systematically analyzing its spatiotemporal distribution characteristic and response mechanism to explanatory variables in Yan’an, northwest China, from 2000 to 2018. The results demonstrated that: (1) LES status was mainly characterized by medium−high level and medium level, and maintained profound stability. (2) zone with medium−high LES level was mainly concentrated in western and southern regions, continuously expanding to northeast regions, and possessed the largest territorial area, accounting for 37.22–46.27% of the total area in Yan’an. (3) LES was primarily susceptible to normalized differential vegetation index, vegetation coverage, and land surface temperature with their optimal impacting thresholds of 0.20–0.64, 0.20–0.55, and 11.20–13.00 °C, respectively. (4) Normalized differential vegetation index and vegetation coverage had a significant synergistic effect upon LES based on their interactive explanation rate of 31% and had significant variation consistency (positive and negative) with LES, which were powerfully suggested to signal the intensification of the regional eco-security level in the persistent eco-greening process.

Water shortage threatens agricultural sustainability in Horqin Sandy Land, northeast China. To explore the effects of various surface mulching patterns with micro-spray irrigation on the yield, water consumption (ETc), and water-saving potential of maize (Zea mays L.), we used three treatments: straw mulching (JG), organic fertilizer mulching (NF), and no mulching (WG; control). In each treatment, plants were supplied with 500 mm of total water (irrigation plus precipitation) during the entire growing season and were irrigated with the amount of total water supply minus precipitation. Yield and water use efficiency (WUE) showed a significant negative correlation with water saving potential per unit yield (Py) and water saving potential per unit area (Sp), which were also consistent with their relationships in the function model. Meanwhile, a remarkably positive correlation occurred between yield, WUE, and net economic profit, respectively. The JG treatment, which was mainly affected by light and temperature production potential (Yc), grain yield, and ETc, showed the lowest Py (0.16 m3 kg−1) and Sp (2572.31 m3 hm−2), and the maximum increase in yield, WUE, and net economic profit, extending to 16,178.40 kg hm−2, 3.25 kg m−3, 17,610.09 yuan hm−2, respectively, which were significantly higher than those in NF and WG, (p y and Sp, which were together responsible for lower WUE.

The availability of water is the critical factor driving plant growth, physiological responses, population and community succession in arid and semiarid regions, thus a precipitation addition-reduction platform with five experimental treatments, was established to explore the growth and physiology of two psammophytes (also known as psammophiles) to precipitation manipulation in Horqin Sandy Land. Changes in coverage and density were measured, and antioxidant enzymes and osmoregulatory substances in both of the studied species were determined. Investigation results showed that the average vegetation coverage increased with an increasing precipitation, and reached a maximum in July. Under the −60% precipitation treatment, Tribulus terrestris accounted for a large proportion of the area, but Bassia dasyphylla was the dominant species in the +60% treatment. T. terrestris was found to have higher a drought stress resistance than B. dasyphylla. From days 4 to 7 after rainfall, B. dasyphylla under precipitation reduction showed obvious water stress. The malondialdehyde (MDA) content of B. dasyphylla was higher than that of T. terrestris, but that of B. dasyphylla had the lower relative water content (RWC). The MDA content in the precipitation reduction treatments of the two studied species was higher than that in the precipitation addition treatments from days 4 to 10. Peroxidase (POD) and superoxide dismutase (SOD) activity and the soluble proteins and free proline content of T. terrestris were higher than those of B. dasyphylla. The free proline content of T. terrestris and B. dasyphylla increased with increasing drought stress. Our data illustrated that T. terrestris had a higher drought stress resistance than B. dasyphylla, which was correlated with the augmentation of some antioxidant enzymes and osmoregulatory substance. The adaptive mechanism provides solid physiological support for an understanding of psammophyte adaptation to drought stress, and of community succession or species manipulation for desertified land restoration.

Water scarcity threatens the sustainability of irrigated agriculture in semi-arid regions, and ridge-furrow planting systems (RFPS) can be a prospective rainwater harvesting approach. In this study, we aimed to develop a promising water-saving strategy to boost maize productivity and water use efficiency (WUE). In 2017, we carried out a field experiment to study the effects of various RFPS with multiple irrigation levels on the yield-water relationship of maize (Zea mays L.). Eleven treatments were set up: RFPS with film mulching on both ridges and furrows and without water supply after seed emergence, abbreviated as QF; RFPS with film mulching on continuous ridges, abbreviated as MD, including SMD, MMD, and LMD (S, M, and L—three water supply (irrigation plus precipitation) levels of 650 mm, 500 mm, and 350 mm during the whole growing season); RFPS without film mulching, abbreviated as DD, including SDD, MDD, and LDD; conventional flat planting with no film mulching, abbreviated as GG, including SGG, MGG, and LGG; localized full irrigation (actual amount of irrigation excessively exceeding the quantity needed), abbreviated as NM. A positive linear relationship (R2 = 0.95–1), a quadratic curve, and a negative linear relationship were observed between the irrigation water level and actual crop evapotranspiration (ETc), grain yield, and WUE, respectively. The ETc of QF (292 mm) was substantially lower than that of the other treatments (p < 0.01), saving 649 mm of irrigation water and increasing the yield by 2.24% compared with those of NM. Meanwhile, the WUE and irrigation water use efficiency (IWUE) of QF reached maximums of 6.3 and 47.36 kg m−3, respectively, which were significantly higher than those of other treatments (p < 0.001). The results showed that planting in an RFPS with film mulching on both ridges and furrows (a ridge-to-furrow ratio of 50:30, with a 38 mm irrigation level) is suitable for maize to obtain high yield and reduce irrigation water use significantly.