Search

The environmental and energy impacts of ICT were identified using a comparative life cycle assessment (CompLCA) focused on business invoicing processes comparing online to paper processes. There were net energy benefits from online billing. The potential impact across the economy and society is large, particularly as COVID-19 has forced many businesses and government services to shift to online service provision. For one million bills produced electronically and received by customers instead of a paper bill, 18.9 t CO2e is avoided, which translates to a national saving of 22,680 tCO2e, assuming 1.2 billion annual invoicing transactions. The impacts of CO2 are sensitive, however, to several assumptions. The study's originality was to show the range of invoicing variables that impact energy and the environment and to highlight which ones can be influenced. For example, the number of online bills produced was the most sensitive. However, the results are reversed under commonly occurring customer use situations. The study demonstrates the positive and negative impacts from the digitalisation of businesses. It suggests remedies based on the main drivers identified under company, contractor and customer control that led to energy consumption and environmental and land use impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Bioassessment to evaluate stream integrity and determine changes related to point-source discharges is typically focused in wadeable streams, with limited understanding of seasonal and annual variation. We used a multi-year (n = 13), multi-site (n = 5–7), seasonally (spring and fall) sampled dataset to evaluate spatial and temporal patterns in diatom assemblages relative to measured environmental variables, land use, and pulp and paper mill discharges in a wadeable stream (Codorus Creek, PA) and three non-wadeable rivers (Leaf River, MS; McKenzie and Willamette rivers, OR). Analysis of variance (ANOVA) and permutational ANOVA (PERMANOVA) showed that significant spatial differences in commonly used diatom biotic integrity/diagnostic metrics and assemblage structure were common in the wadeable stream, but rare in the non-wadeable rivers. Season-specific diatom patterns were observed in all streams regardless of size, but annual variation was more prevalent in the non-wadeable rivers. Environmental variables explained 35–58% of the variability in diatoms in the spring and 33–50% in the fall, with physical habitat characteristics associated with stream morphology and seasonality more important than those associated with anthropogenic inputs such as land use and point sources. Findings from this study highlight the value of spatially and temporally comprehensive datasets in understanding and interpreting diatom assemblage patterns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "Dasgupta Review" of the economics of biodiversity (Dasgupta 2021) identifies many factors that threaten the ecological sustainability of our economies. This article examines how two policy failures - the underpricing and underfunding of nature – influence global land use change and terrestrial biodiversity loss. If natural areas are priced too cheaply, then converting them to agriculture, forestry and other land uses is less costly than protecting or preserving habitats. Underfunding nature further reduces the incentives for conservation and restoration. The current global funding gap for biodiversity is just under $900 billion annually, and especially impacts developing countries. Ending the underpricing of natural landscape requires removing environmentally harmful subsidies and adopting policies that place an additional cost on the use of land and natural resources or on pollution. Overcoming the funding gap means expanding public and private sources of financing nature, particularly for poorer countries, such as biodiversity offsets, payments for ecosystem services, debt-for-nature swaps, green bonds, sustainable supply chains and international environmental agreements. Using the example of peatlands, the article shows how such a comprehensive global strategy can be built. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: One common renewable energy source for substituting fossil sources is photovoltaic (PV) systems. However, installing PV systems in agricultural areas can lead to competition with other land uses. These projects, therefore, often encounter problems with social acceptance in affected communities. Especially from the perspective of nature conservation targets, conflicts can arise. These potential differences are still under-researched but represent important knowledge for the societally broadly accepted design of such facilities and their contribution to energy transformation. In this paper, we investigate the perspectives of nature conservationists on PV in the region of Brandenburg, Germany. We comparatively analyse attitudes towards ground-mounted photovoltaics (GM-PV) and agrophotovoltaics (APV). APV combines energy supply and agricultural production on the same land and could thus be a possible solution for mitigating land-use conflicts. Results: We investigated the degree of local acceptability and positive and negative influencing factors through a qualitative text analysis of ten interviews with local representatives and position papers by Nature Conservation Associations. Our findings show a growing consensus around basic assumptions of the need for renewable energies, the prioritised support for PV systems on rooftops over the installation on agricultural land (GM-PV and APV), and the necessity for PV systems to be compatible with nature conservation objectives. Regarding specific site decisions on agricultural land, we find diverging attitudes when comparing the content of position papers and the responses of interviewees. The interviewees advocate taking into account local interests and specific regional conditions, the effects of PV systems on the local environment, and the need for distributional justice. Large-scale plants are locally less accepted than smaller ones and there is a more open attitude towards the expansion of APV than of GM-PV on agricultural land. However, a range of concerns regarding consequences for landscape and biodiversity persists, and further research and clarification is required to address these issues. Conclusions: We conclude that basic ecological standards and the demands of local stakeholders and interest groups should be taken into account when planning, implementing and reviewing PV projects in the future. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since 1990, global forest area has been reducing; tropical forests have suffered from different anthropogenic and natural factors that account for forest loss. Tropical deforestation is the second driver of anthropogenic emissions; increasing demand and investments in tropical forests drive these emissions. These forests attract significant foreign direct investments, but the effects of these investments on carbon emissions from land use, land-use change, and forestry are not well enshrined in the literature for the countries under study. This paper seeks to analyse the impact of foreign direct investments on carbon emissions from land use, land-use change, and forestry amongst 30 tropical forest countries from 1996 to 2019. The sampled countries were disaggregated by tropical blocs: Amazon, Congo basin, Australasia, and Southeast Asia, and by income levels; low-income, lower-middle, upper-middle, and high-income. The findings reveal a U-shape structure of the impact of FDI on carbon emissions from LULUCF within Congo basin and Amazon countries; at higher levels of FDI, emissions from LULUCF will increase while Australasia and Southeast Asian countries show an inverted U-shape impact, thus at higher levels of FDI, there will be a negative and significant impact on carbon emissions from LULUCF. The income levels reveal an inverted U-shape for low-income and high-income countries and a U-shape for upper-middle-income countries; the impact for lower-middle-income countries is not significant. Overall, for the whole sample, the impact depicts a U-shape. This paper proposes high-level development of environmental conditions for FDI for different sectors that align with country and regional green growth plans. Enhancing national and regional governance systems to enforce decisions and fight corruption effectively can significantly promote green FDI for green growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploring the regional differences and convergence of urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) is of great significance for urban green development and the goal of carbon neutrality. Based on the panel data of 282 prefecture-level cities in China from 2006 to 2019, this paper uses the SBM-Undesirable model to calculate ULGUE in China, then uses Dagum Gini coefficient decomposition, coefficient of variation and panel data model to reveal the regional differences and convergence of ULGUE. The results show that ULGUE in China increased from 0.441 to 0.555 in 2006–2019. The number of cities in the medium–low efficiency range is dominant, accounting for more than 54%. There are differences in ULGUE among the three major regions, which shows the distribution pattern of west > east > central. ULGUE in China has significant spatial agglomeration characteristics, and its overall, intra-regional and inter-regional differences show a downward trend. Over-variable density is the main source of the overall difference, with an average contribution rate of 49.71%. ULGUE across the country and in the three regions of east, central and west in China exist significant σ convergence, absolute β and conditions β convergence. The research results are helpful to objectively evaluate ULGUE in China, and provide decision-making reference for promoting the green, low-carbon and sustainable use of urban land and achieving the goal of carbon neutrality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aimed at investigating the harm from ecosystem services (ESs) according to agricultural land conversion (ALC) by using meta-analysis. The results of meta-regression showed that spatiotemporal effects had significant influences on some ES losses, and the maximum spatial impacts were relevant to Asia and Europe. Moreover, the results of ALC rate coefficients in meta-regression indicated that three large losses of ES were related to soil erosion (0.314), air pollution (0.202), and climate change (0.161). Therefore, the ALC should be done at a suitable conversion rate to reduce ES losses. Accordingly, administrators are suggested to consider careful research planning for the ALC in the process of economic development. Other strategies highlighted the importance of ALC–ES interactions for human well-being, such as measuring the pricing of goods and services based on land resources, continuously monitoring illegal ALC, and imposing taxes on unplanned ALC. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Statistical meta-analysis is a powerful and useful tool to quantitatively synthesize the information conveyed in published studies on a particular topic. It allows identifying and quantifying overall patterns and exploring causes of variation. The inclusion of published works in meta-analyses requires, however, a minimum quality standard of the reported data and information on the methodology used. Our experience with conducting a meta-analysis on the relationship between seedling quality and field performance is that nearly one third of the apparently relevant publications had to be discarded because essential data, usually statistical dispersion parameters, were not properly reported. In addition, we encountered substantial difficulty to explore the effect of covariates due to the poor description of nursery cultivation methods, plantation location, and management in a significant proportion of the selected primary studies. Thus, we present guidelines for improving methodology detail and data presentation so that future forest restoration-oriented research can be more readily incorporated into meta-analyses. In general, research studies should report data on means, sample size, and any measure of variation even if they are not statistically significant. The online availability of raw data is the best practice to facilitate the inclusion of primary research on meta-analyses. Providing full information about the production of nursery seedlings, such as plant material and experimental conditions, is essential to test whether these procedures might have an effect on seedling quality. In addition, detailed information about field trials such as site climate, soil preparation techniques, previous land use, or post-plantation management, is needed to elucidate whether seedling quality is context-dependent. Thus, we provide a detailed checklist of important information that should be included when reporting forest restoration research involving the use of nursery-produced seedlings. All this will help to quantitatively synthetize current state-of-knowledge and thus contribute to the advancement of the forest restoration discipline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper reflects on the legacy of the Ambio papers by Sombroek et al. (1993), Turner et al. (1994), and Brussaard et al. (1997) on the study of agricultural land use and its impacts on global carbon storage and nutrient dynamics. The papers were published at a time of transition in ecology that involved the integration of humans as components of ecosystems, the formulation of the ecosystem services, and emergence of sustainability science. The papers offered new frameworks to studying agricultural land use across multiple scales in a way that captured causality from interacting components of the system. Each paper argued for more comprehensive data sets; foreseeing the power of network-based science, the potential of molecular technologies to assess biodiversity, and advances in remote sensing. The papers have contributed both conceptual framings and methodological approaches to an ongoing movement to identify a pathway to study agricultural land use and environmental change that fit within the concepts of ecosystem services, planetary boundaries and sustainable development goals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Rapid urbanization will cause various land use changes and the vast occupation of green spaces, a critical factor in the deterioration of biodiversity in urbanized areas. Some species of wildlife are endangered due to habitat shrunk and fragmentation. However, Malaysia's current biodiversity protection range is still limited. The Ecological Network (EN) refers to a framework of ecological components, which can be obtained by geographical and technical approaches to support more ecological diversity ranges. Furthermore, little research has been found on EN in Malaysia and the impact of land use change on EN. Therefore, the Selangor region is selected as the study area. This paper quantifies land use change and measures the extent of land use change to obtain the EN's change. The result has shown that forestland has decreased, explored by people for housing and agriculture from 2000 to 2020. The EN has a trend of fragmentation. Overall, this study's results imply that the land use change led to EN's worsened performance from 2000 to 2020 in the study area. This paper hopes that this research could help supply information on conserving biodiversity in future development and urban sustainable planning in Malaysia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The assessment of transport systems has traditionally focused on congestion and ridership as its core performance measures. These perspectives fail to account for the actual service people seek from the transport system—the ability to reach destinations. Recent studies have shifted to focus on accessibility as a performance indicator, but do not address the question whether the observed accessibility is sufficient for meeting people's daily needs. This paper contributes to the accessibility literature by (1) applying a people-centered approach to the performance assessment of transit systems and (2) exploring the factors explaining the differences in performance between regions. The paper proposes the Accessibility Sufficiency Index (ASI) as a performance standard. The ASI is based on a sufficiency threshold representing an accessibility level that is assumed to enable adequate access to destinations. The paper uses neighborhood transit job accessibility data to calculate separate ASI scores for different sufficiency thresholds for 49 large US metropolitan areas. Regression analyses show that transit system performance is shaped most strongly by transit vehicle revenue miles, mixed land uses, and activity centering. Importantly, the size of these effects varies by the employed sufficiency threshold, suggesting that transportation and land use factors affect transit performance at different spatial scales. The results have implications for the ways we evaluate transport and transit systems and for our understanding of the factors that affect their performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aimed to study land reforms in the Russian Federation from the abolition of serfdom to the present time. The research was carried out by analyzing land and urban planning regulatory and legal acts, territorial planning, and municipal land management schemes used in constituent entities of the Russian Federation. The conducted retrospective analysis of land reforms in Russia revealed weaknesses and strengths and outlined prospects for further development of land relations. The conducted study showed that land reforms in Russia have not reached a successful conclusion. It had negative effects on agriculture and food security of the country. The paper provides recommendations with regard to the regulatory and scientific-methodological basis for a new system of land ownership and land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Shared Autonomous Vehicles (SAVs) are expected to have a transformative role in future transportation systems, by reducing vehicle ownership, helping in alleviating congestion, improving accessibility and traffic safety, and changing travel behavior and urban infrastructure. The potential introduction of SAVs in transportation systems has triggered the need of exploiting suitable tools for designing and planning SAV operations and services and assessing their impacts. An explicit category of such tools are agent-based models (ABMs), whose advantage in efficiently representing transportation systems with a fine level of detail, has allowed them to gain importance in modeling SAVs. This paper systematically reviews and organizes the current state-of-the-art on ABMs dealing with SAVs. The review is two-fold: first, the methodological aspects of exploiting ABMs in the context of SAV services and operations are analyzed and second, ABM-based findings on the anticipated impacts of SAVs to traffic, travel behavior, land uses, the environment and so on, are presented and discussed. The paper concludes with recommendations for future research on SAVs and other, potential ABM applications for that purpose. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the years, the demand for transportation has experienced a consistent rise, which has exacerbated a multitude of issues including environmental, visual, and noise pollution, congestion, land use conflicts, and various other related challenges. In this regard, the pursuit of alternatives aimed at mitigating these adverse effects stands as a priority for governments and policymakers. Consequently, inland waterway transport (IWT) emerges as an appealing solution, due to its advantages across the social, environmental, and economic considerations. However, in relation to IWT the concept of sustainable development is insufficiently investigated. The objective of this paper is to undertake a comprehensive review of how the concept of sustainable development is addressed and applied within the framework of IWT systems. To achieve this goal, a systematic literature review was meticulously conducted, utilizing three academic databases (Scopus, Google Scholar, and EBSCO). The review process yielded a total of 51 papers that proved to be pertinent and relevant to the subject matter. The comprehensive literature review facilitated the delineation of the principal elements, factors, and characteristics of the IWT system, as well as the primary drivers for its sustainable development. However, the implications for further research were identified, such as a comprehensive examination of each case due to the distinct geographical, social, economic, and political conditions inherent to each individual basin. That is essential for understanding the unique barriers present within each context and for formulating viable solutions aimed at fostering and incentivizing the sustainable development of IWT systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Urban green space is a direct way to improve the carbon sink capacity of urban ecosystems. The carbon storage assessment of megacity green spaces is of great significance to the service function of urban ecosystems and the management of urban carbon zoning in the future. Based on multi-period remote sensing image data, this paper used the CASA model and the InVEST model to analyze the spatio-temporal variation and driving mechanism of carbon storage in Shenzhen green space and discussed the applicability of the two models to the estimation of carbon storage in urban green space. The research results showed that, from 2008 to 2022, in addition to the rapid expansion of construction land, the area of green space and other land types in Shenzhen showed a significant decrease trend. The estimation results of the carbon storage model showed that the carbon storage of green space shows a significant trend of reduction from 2008 to 2022, and the reduction amounts are 0.8 × 106 t (CASA model) and 0.64 × 106 t (InVEST model), respectively. The evaluation results of the model show that, in megacities, the spatial applicability of InVEST model is lower than that of CASA model, and the CASA model is more accurate in estimating the carbon storage of urban green space. The research results can provide a scientific basis for the assessment of the carbon sink capacity of megacity ecosystems with the goal of "dual carbon". [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The UK has made efforts to rebuild its cities' image through harbourside regeneration projects, aiming to enhance citizens' sense of local identity in recent decades. This endeavour requires systematic research on effective urban design strategies, especially for renewal projects, to restore a sense of place (SoP). Hence, this study proposes a conceptual framework for SoP with measurable urban design elements combining both scholars' and place users' perceptions. To begin the research process, we summarised ten design elements for SoP and seven levels of SoP based on a literature review. Then, we conducted an on-site questionnaire survey to collect place users' perceptions on SoP. Subsequently, we developed a SoP conceptual framework by combining insights from prior studies and on-site users' perceptions. To test the conceptual framework and extract feasible urban design strategies for forming a strong SoP, we investigated three representative harbourside regeneration projects in the UK with high levels of SoP. The core design strategies employed in these projects are summarised in this paper along the following three dimensions: (a) mixed land use of residence, work, and tourism complemented by various supporting public facilities; (b) rich spatial relationships based on high degrees of accessibility, permeability, and rational urban tissue and development density; and (c) a distinctive place character formed by public space, architecture, and landscape design. These strategies would complement each other to develop a SoP design guideline based on a unique image, diverse activities, and reasonable forms. This study's findings can be instrumental in the empirical assessment, design, planning, and policymaking for promoting SoP in regeneration projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In order to strengthen the overall planning and coordination of urban construction and ecological space in Baishan City, we should formulate a scientific land type planning of Production-Living-Ecological Space (PLES). In this paper, land use dynamic attitude model, land use transfer matrix, land use function center of gravity transfer model, eco-environmental quality index(EEQI) and geographic detector model are used to discuss the spatio-temporal evolution of PLES in Baishan City from 2000 to 2020. Spatio-temporal evolution of EEQI and its influencing factors. The results show that: (1) During the study period, Baishan City showed the characteristics that the production space first increased and then decreased, the ecological space decreased, and the living space continued to increase. Among them, the ecological space is the dominant space of Baishan City, covering an area of more than 80%. From the perspective of the transformation of PLES, from 2000 to 2020, Baishan City is mainly characterized by the transformation of ecological space into production space and living space. In the second type of space, green ecological space, forestry ecological space and other ecological space have decreased, while other types of space have increased in varying degrees. (2) During the study period, the overall EEQI of Baishan City remained in good condition, and the ecological environment quality(EEQ) of the three periods were 0.6571, 0.6412 and 0.6562 respectively. The higher EEQI is distributed in Changbai County and Linjiang City, while the areas with lower EEQI are concentrated in the north-central part of Hunjiang City, the middle part of Jiangyuan District and the northwest of Fusong County. (3) According to the analysis of the influencing factors of EEQ, the influence of the factors of spatial differentiation of EEQI in Baishan City changed significantly from 2000 to 2020, and the average annual rainfall was the core factor affecting the spatial differentiation of EEQ in Baishan City, the second is the urbanization rate and the distance from the county government, and the interaction between the average annual rainfall and the distance from the county government has a strong influence on the spatial differentiation of EEQ in Baishan City. This study reveals the evolution of spatial types and EEQ of PLES in Baishan City, and provides a scientific reference for the effective management and utilization of land resources in Baishan City. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For a long time, due to lack of accurate data covering large areas, it is difficult to capture the continuous spatial evolutionary trajectory of rural settlements shaped by rapid urbanization and rural land use policies. To fill this gap, based on theoretical analysis this paper systemically detected the changing characteristics of scale, spatial morphology, distribution, and land use pattern of rural settlements in Southern Jiangsu in the past 20 years depending on the data of land resource survey in 2009 and 2019. The study suggests that the total area and per capita size of rural settlements declined by 30% and 2% respectively as a result of rural land consolidation and the influx of enormous immigrants from underdeveloped regions. The spatial density and average shape index dropped by 14% and 44% respectively in the recent decade, indicating an evident trend of decentralization in spatial distribution, and regularization in the spatial morphology. Furthermore, residential land within rural settlements decreased by 33% over the past decade while the land for industry and commercial service steadily increased, demonstrating that the function for manufacturing and diversified services had been strengthened. Considering the emerging issue of the aging population and new business opportunities in rural Southern Jiangsu, rural settlements regeneration might be the focus of future research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use change models have been widely used to predict the changes in the future and provide different scenarios under different policies. However, most models commonly compare the transition proportions of change relying on the gross change, which generally fails to represent the inherent dominant transition of land categories. In this paper, Markov chain was used to obtain the dominant transition as global transition probability of each land use cell by separating the systematic information from random information. The dominant transition is transformed into transition probability and then combined with WLC (weighted linear combination) to calculate the new suitability map for cellular automata (CA) simulation. Thus, an improved CA model coupled with dominant transition and Markov chain was designed to improve the performance of simulating land use changes. Choosing Changping District of Beijing, China as the study area, this paper mined the driving factors and conversion relationship revealed by land use patterns in 1988 and 1995. Some land use types have the large area and result in large transition, but the expected transition is not exceptionally large, which used to revise the probability to simulate the land use status in 2000. The predictive power of the model was evaluated by Kappa index and fractal dimension, which reached the higher simulation accuracy and landscape index similarity. The improved model provides an effective and useful method to extract dominant transition to overcome some limitation of CA–Markov model. And the dominant transition information provides a possibility for ecologically risk identification. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In March 2018, the State Council issued a reform plan for institutions. Through the establishment of the Ministry of natural resources, the planning of the national space system was carried out, and the historical division phenomenon within the administrative institutions was solved by using the transformation of fragmentation. Subsequently, relevant functional departments began to design the land spatial planning system and coordinate the mechanism. From the policy guidance, it can be seen that land use spatial planning has risen to the central position in the national management system. From the current situation of planning control, planning control becomes more and more important in the management process. At the same time, the construction of ecological civilization requires us to examine the regulatory mechanism from a new perspective. Therefore, based on machine vision technology, this paper develops a land use spatial planning method system. The sub-pixel edge detection algorithm used in the system design can obtain the point coordinates on the edge of the gauge block with high accuracy. After testing, we can see that in terms of storage space, the octree map used in this paper can save more space than the point cloud map under the same resolution. The data results obtained from the test are also better than the existing system, indicating that the machine vision spatial planning system studied in this paper can better serve the field of land and resources planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There are urgent ecological and environmental problems in the process of the utilization of urban construction land, promoting green utilization of construction land is conducive to urban sustainable development and high-quality economic development. Based on the panel data of 108 prefecture-level and above cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, China from 2003 to 2017, this paper uses the super-efficiency SBM model to measure the green efficiency of urban construction land (GEUCL), analyzes its spatial–temporal evolution characteristics, and constructs the spatial autoregressive model to study its spatial spillover effects from the perspective of urban hierarchy. It is found that, in terms of temporal variation, the average efficiency value shows a fluctuating upward trend during the study period, rising from 0.27 in 2003 to 0.39 in 2017, the cumulative growth rate is 44.44%, with an average annual growth rate of 3.14%. In terms of spatial distribution characteristics, during the study period, the number of medium-efficiency and high-efficiency cities increases significantly, while the number of low-efficiency cities decreases sharply; high-efficiency cities always present scattered distribution, while medium-efficiency cities change from scattered distribution to agglomeration distribution. In addition, GEUCL has significantly positive spatial spillover effects between neighboring cities of different grades and between neighboring cities of the same grade, among them, the increase of GEUCL in higher-grade cities has significantly positive spatial spillover effects on that in adjacent lower-grade cities; the increase of GEUCL in lower-grade cities has significantly positive spatial spillover effects on that in neighboring higher-grade cities; GEUCL has significantly positive spatial spillover effects between neighboring cities of the same grade. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Revealing the general laws of land use transformation (LUT) under the coupling evolution of different socio-economic and eco-environment (SE-EE) in mountainous areas is of great significance for rational use of land resources, regional socio-economic development, and eco-environment protection. This paper constructs a research framework of LUT under the coupling evolution of SE-EE and takes Fengjie County as an example to conduct a case study. The results show (1) the socio-economic development level and eco-environment quality showed an overall growth trend from 2000 to 2020, showed the distribution pattern of high in the Yangtze River valley and low in the mountainous areas, and low in the Yangtze River valley and high in the mountainous areas respectively. (2) The coupling evolution of SE-EE showed five types: synchronous development of SE-EE, socio-economic development and ecological retarded, socio-economic retarded and ecological restoration, low socio-economic development level, and low eco-environment quality. (3) The transformation of land use quantity, structure, and function corresponded to the coupling evolution of SE-EE. Cultivated land was reduced when the socio-economic development level was relatively high, and the function changed from production to ecological and eco-economic. When the eco-environment quality was high, cultivated land was reduced, and the function changed from production to ecological. (4) The framework constructed in this paper is universal to the mountainous areas represented by the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) and the plain areas where the LUT and SE-EE evolution are different from the mountainous areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the field of landscape ecology, the distribution of different kinds of landscape, determined the resistance in ecological processes such as species migration and energy flow. Various connection ways among them would establish diverse corridors with different resistance. Thus, it was important to choose scientific ecological network with consider of minimum resistance. Based on the land use data in 2010 and 2020, the paper firstly analyzed the spatiotemporal distribution characteristics of greenspace in Jinan, then assessed the influence of each natural and socio-economic factor on the change of greenspace by GeoDetector. The weights of each resistance factor in the ecological process were acquired based on the results of factor detector. Finally, the paper constructed an ecological network of greenspace in Jinan by the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) method, which would provide scientific basis for decision support of urban plan and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Nowadays, landing gears used in aircraft are the basic systems that carry the weight of aircraft systems and provide them to move on the ground. During the landing of aircraft, big and sudden vibrations occur as soon as the wheels come into contact with the runway. This situation negatively affects human safety, comfort and also the life of the landing gear system. Therefore, it is important to keep this vibration at permissible levels. This paper presents an improved vibration control method that controls the amplitudes of vibrations of landing systems. This paper presents proposed vibration control method that controls the angular position variables of the landing gear mechanism to control the vibrations occurring during landing. For different runway conditions and 200 km/h landing speed, the angular joint variables of the landing gear mechanism links are controlled using standard controller and a proposed neural controller structure. The simulation results are shown that the proposed neural controllers have better performance at vibration control of landing systems during landing. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although land-use change driven by general economic factors has been discussed substantially, rarely has any work been done within the perspective of economic geography – considering the impact of economic spatial differences. This study applies the 3Ds (Density, Division and Distance) framework published by the World Bank to explore their impacts on urban land-use change – focusing on urban land and stand-alone industrial land. Employing the dynamic system-GMM (Generalized Method of Moments) model and a mediating effect model, we examine the direct and indirect effects of 3Ds on land-use change in cities with different income levels and in different regions. Our results find that deepening spatial differences facilitate the expansion of urban land and stand-alone industrial land use. Furthermore, the 3Ds has indirect effects on land use through the interactions between density and distance, as well as between division and distance. These impacts are divergent in cities with different income levels and region-specific. The main contribution of this paper is twofold. Theoretically, the study develops a new systematic framework to explain land-use change within the field of economic geography. Empirically, we examine the theoretical framework of spatial inequality by considering both direct and indirect effects. This study also has important policy implications for improving the economic value of land use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper is concerned with assessment of the state of the soil mantle so as to improve land-management efficiency using the example of the Volozhinsky district of the Republic of Belarus. A technique for comprehensive assessment of soil agrochemical and natural potential is proposed by means of typifying the soil mantle depending on agrochemical parameters, such as pHKCl, content of humus and mobile phosphorus and potassium compounds, and bonitet (quality class) score, reflecting soil fertility. Using geostatistical methods, the values of agrochemical parameters are interpolated from elementary areas into areals of agricultural-land soil subtypes and classified according to gradations of agrochemical parameters, constituting the agrochemical potential (AP). After intersection of AP and bonitet score, nine groups of soils are distinguished by the soil-agrochemical potential (SAP), of which soils with the moderate potential account for the largest share (58.2% or 61.95 ha). As a result of a spatial assessment of soil-agrochemical potential (SAP), sod–podzolic and sod–podzolic waterlogged soils, evolving on light loams and cohesive sandy loams, have the highest potential. Territories with low SAP gravitate towards the most dissected areas of the terrain with sand and loose sandy loam soils. Typification served to determine the main types of preferred land use in the Volozhinsky district; specifically, more than half of agricultural lands can be involved in intensive agricultural use as arable lands (52.1%) and meadows (12.5%), traditional agricultural use of lands is possible in 29.3% of the territories, and only 6.2% of lands (largely with erosion hazard) require introduction of soil-protecting crop-farming systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The current paper aims to assess the effects of landscape change in a mountain river basin in the north of Iran through quantifying, mapping, and assessing carbon storage. The analyses were performed based on previous alterations in land use and land cover (LULC) (1988–2018) and on expected changes determined by three LULC alteration setups for 2048. The Landsat imagery from 2018, 2008, 1998, and 1988 was used for evaluating and predicting the spatiotemporal distributions of LULC changes. The future LULC image prediction has been generated using Land Change Modeler (LCM) module of TerrSet software for the years 2028, 2038, and 2048. Validation was carried out by overlaying the actual and projected to 2018 map. We integrated the Markov Chain (MC) and InVEST Carbon Storage and Sequestration (InVEST-CSS) models for simulating the ecosystem carbon storage and the long-term monetary valuation. In this process, we considered social costs/economic value because of the area's loss and gain of stored carbon. The results show that forests and rangelands with good and poor conditions decreased by 631.2, 10,374, and 10,254 ha, respectively, from 1988 to 2018. Overall, modeling and mapping LULC changes showed a descending trend in forests (0.66%), agriculture (0.1%), and rangelands (4.1%) in 2048. In addition, carbon storage has already been lost by 9.9 million tons (76.98 ha−1) from 1988 to 8.8 million tons (68.86 ha−1) in 2018 and is expected to have an 8.4 million tons (65.25 ha−1) loss by 2048. Monitoring the economic value of carbon storage from 1988 to 2018 shows a loss of $US 15684338 (121.8 ha−1) and estimates a loss of $US6972622 (54.18 ha−1) by 2048. Therefore, spatiotemporal design of InVEST model by estimating the carbon value over time focuses on continuous monitoring actions for both the carbon pools dynamic and LULC pattern. This consideration causes reduction the uncertainty of estimated models and also increases the continuous cost of those changes. This will help government and decision makers for long-term and accurate carbon sequestration strategies for ecosystem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land use transition and its impact on ecosystem service value (ESV) are the foundation for optimizing the layout of territorial space and ecological civilization construction. With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the area of construction land expands in China. To accurately estimate the ESV in industrial counties, the impact of construction land on the ecological environment should be fully considered. This paper took Gangcheng District, Jinan City, a steel base in the Shandong Province of China as an example, then the value coefficients of "three wastes" factors (waste gas, wastewater, and waste) were introduced, and an improved calculation method of ESV was put forward for industrial counties in combination with remote sensing and land use data. Finally, the land use transition and its ESV effect in typical industrial counties were analyzed using geo-informatic Tupu and grid method. The results showed that the most important land use transitions were from grassland and forestland to cultivated land, from cultivated land and forestland to construction land in 1990–2010, and from cultivated land transformed to forestland in 2010–2021. The types of land use transition were mainly repetitive and continuous. The ESV first decreased and then increased, with a slight overall decline for more than 30 years, showing a spatial distribution characteristic of "low in the south-central and high around." Land use transition had the impact on ESV with the negative contribution rate of 68.28% in 1990–2000 and 73.16% in 2000–2010, mainly caused by the transition from forestland and grassland to cultivated land and construction land, and the positive contribution rate of 81.72% in 2010–2021, mainly caused by the transition from cultivated land to forestland. Compared with the ESV calculation method without introducing the "three wastes" factor and Xie Gaodi's method, the improved method in this paper considered the inevitable impact of construction land on ESV in industrial counties and made the ESV calculated more accurate according to the regional nature. This paper cannot only enrich the theories and technical methods of land use transition and its effects, and provide a case reference for similar industrial counties, but also provide data and decision-making support for the spatial layout and ecological protection in the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agricultural dykelands in Nova Scotia rely heavily on a surface drainage technique called land forming, which is used to alter the topography of fields to improve drainage. The presence of land-formed fields provides useful information to better understand land utilization on these lands vulnerable to rising sea levels. Current field boundaries delineation and classification methods, such as manual digitalization and traditional segmentation techniques, are labour-intensive and often require manual and time-consuming parameter selection. In recent years, deep learning (DL) techniques, including convolutional neural networks and Mask R-CNN, have shown promising results in object recognition, image classification, and segmentation tasks. However, there is a gap in applying these techniques to detecting surface drainage patterns on agricultural fields. This paper develops and tests a Mask R-CNN model for detecting land-formed fields on agricultural dykelands using LiDAR-derived elevation data. Specifically, our approach focuses on identifying groups of pixels as cohesive objects within the imagery, a method that represents a significant advancement over pixel-by-pixel classification techniques. The DL model developed in this study demonstrated a strong overall performance, with a mean Average Precision (mAP) of 0.89 across Intersection over Union (IoU) thresholds from 0.5 to 0.95, indicating its effectiveness in detecting land-formed fields. Results also revealed that 53% of Nova Scotia's dykelands are being used for agricultural purposes and approximately 75% (6924 hectares) of these fields were land-formed. By applying deep learning techniques to LiDAR-derived elevation data, this study offers novel insights into surface drainage mapping, enhancing the capability for precise and efficient agricultural land management in regions vulnerable to environmental changes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ventilation corridor is an essential element in urban planning and design to improve the climate and environment. In this paper, four forms of two ventilation corridors were set up in the southeast of Wuhan City based on its urban planning outline to quantitatively study the influences of different ventilation corridor forms on the urban thermal environment in summer. The urban micro-meteorological environment was simulated using the next-generation mesoscale Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model coupled with an urban canopy model (UCM). Critical time-dependent meteorological values were extracted and plotted, including temperature and wind difference fields, average temperature at 2-m height, average wind speed at 10-m height, and surface energy flux. By conducting a comparative analysis of the quantitative results, the ventilation corridors in construction land are arranged at intervals in the upwind position of the city in summer, which can slightly adjust the thermal environment of the central area of the city, and have an effective regulation on the temperature of the corridors and surrounding areas during the daytime. Especially at 15:00 pm when the temperature is at its highest during the day, the temperature can be reduced by 0.8 °C. Compared to other corridors, the wind speed in and around the corridor is the strongest 11 h a day. Due to the internal arrangement of construction land, this corridor form is more advantageous in the urban land utilization. After considering comprehensively, the ventilation corridor form with construction land arranged at intervals is the preferred corridor form in the southeast of Wuhan. The experimental results can provide quantitative reference for the layout of ventilation corridors in hot inland cities located in central China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The sole purpose of this review paper is to reveal the land use and land cover (LULC) changes in the study region (Northern India) from 2017 to 2021. The researchers discovered that no systematic review of the LULC dynamics of the study region had been conducted so far. This study used a novel systematic review procedure (i.e., the ICA framework) to conduct the review process. The data for this study were retrieved from the Web of Science of Clarivate Analytics, using keywords related to LULC. A thorough review of 29 full-text articles was done to examine the primary land use classes (LUC), techniques used, factors responsible, and dynamics of the major land classes. Most articles included agriculture, built-up, water bodies, and plantations as the main LULC categories. Most of them used on-screen digitisation and supervised algorithms to classify LULC classes and incorporated accuracy assessment to validate their results. It was also found that almost all the papers cited climate change, increasing population, urbanisation, and economic considerations as the main drivers responsible for the changes that occurred in different LULCs. The findings of the various studies revealed that horticulture and built-up areas have increased while agricultural, forest cover and open spaces have decreased to a greater extent. Environmental negatives of LULC dynamics of the region suggested that LULC change is not favourable everywhere. Thus, to control the haphazard LULC change, the government must come up with a substantial land conversion policy in the region with ground-level implantation that will restrict the people from blind land conversion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We conducted a systematic review to better understand this gap and analyzed i) in which global regions are studies usually conducted, ii) the taxon studied, iii) sampling methods and iv) how authors collaborated in these studies. We also tested the relationship between different types of land use and land cover and adult EPT communities using a meta-analysis. We searched for relevant articles on the website Web of Science, using specific words related to the subject. We found 454 papers and selected 31 of them for the scientometric analysis, as they were in accordance with our objectives, and eight for the meta-analysis. Among this subset, we observed that study areas and collaborations among authors were largely restricted to a few countries in Europe and North America. Most studies used the group Trichoptera, probably due to its diversity and the longevity of the adults compared to other groups. Light traps were the most common sampling method, most likely due to their efficiency in capturing flying insects with nocturnal habits. The greatest differences in adult EPT communities were found between open areas (moorland and prairie) and forest areas. This result indicated that the conversion of forest habitats into open areas negatively impacts adult EPT communities. Our systematic review can be an important tool to help researchers choose appropriate collection methods and taxonomic groups to work with in studies on impacts of land use change on adult EPT communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mangrove land use changes of varied intensities have long been a problem in tropical mangrove forests. This has resulted in various degrees of mangrove land use modification, which catch many interests in the region for research. The research provided here is a bibliometric analysis of scholarly articles published around the world in various publication document types on changes in land use of tropical mangrove forests based on remote sensing and Geographical Information System (GIS). Scientific data analysis was undertaken by using bibliometric approaches on 6,574 papers extracted from the Scopus databases between 2010 and 2020. The findings revealed that the number of publications continuously climbed from under 400 to an average of 50–60 per year till 2019. The data showed that the mangrove forest modifications study gained traction when the highest number of citations, 9,236 in 2015, were observed. We can also notice that the overall number of citations fluctuated a lot during the first five years (2010–2015) but increased from 2013 to 2015. The findings demonstrate how remote sensing satellites have aided vegetation and land study in recent years. The findings also revealed that the analysis tools of Land Use Change, Vegetation Index, Mangrove, Tropical Country, Remote Sensing, and Tropical contributed to scientific knowledge of current issues of mangrove land use change in the tropical region. The authors' keywords, Remote Sensing in particular, supplied roughly 43%, Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (13%), Vegetation Index (9%), and other keywords contributed less than 7%. The growth pattern of the keywords "MODIS" and "Landsat" implies that both will stay important over the next five years, according to an analysis of the type of satellite used in land use assessment. Meanwhile, papers pertaining to policy on land use change, food security, and forest resources were evaluated in order to highlight policy and academic research findings on the topics. The application of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index, which is a very relevant tool that can be used in monitoring land use changes and assessing vegetation status because it is a desirable technique in measuring plant health and vigour, can help fill the research gaps presented in this study. This review can help with the development of better mangrove land use change approaches in tropical mangroves and around the world using satellite remote sensing and GIS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Antioxidants (AOX) in soils originate mainly from secondary plant metabolites and are pivotal in many redox processes in environment, maintaining soil quality. Still, little is known about the influence of land uses on their accumulation in soil. The aim of the paper was to determine the content of these redox-active compounds in the extracts of A horizons of abandoned fallows, arable and woodland soils. Total antioxidant capacity (TAC) of soils under various uses and vegetation was evaluated in different soil extracts using Folin-Ciocâlteu method. The contribution of humic acids to TAC was determined and antioxidant profiles estimated using the chromatographic GC–MS method. Forest soils exhibited the highest TAC (15.5 mg g−1) and AOX contents (4.34 mg g−1), which were positively correlated with soil organic carbon content. It was estimated that humic acids contribute to over 50% of TAC in soils. The main phenolics in woodland A horizons were isovanillic and p-hydroxybenzoic acid (p-HA), while esculetin and p-HA predominated in the abandoned fallows due to the prevalence of herbaceous vegetation. Cultivated soils were the most abundant in p-HA (56.42%). In the studied topsoils, there were considerable amounts of aliphatic organic matter, which role in redox processes should be further evaluated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The "MyFairShare" project develops fair CO2 mobility budgets for individuals. Here, "fairness" mainly depends on the people's location as everyone should be able to access all destinations necessary to perform everyday tasks. Therefore, a basic understanding about the accessibility of facilities to visit within an area is needed, regarding all activities that must be performed. Given this, the amount of emitted CO2 is computed, assuming the use of sustainable modes while regarding reasonable ranges, i.e. a travel time of 15 min. In order to achieve this, a software system for computing this metric has been developed. It is based on open source applications and uses data that—besides public transport data in GTFS format—is freely available throughout Europe. This paper describes the method and presents the results of applying it to the project's five Living Labs Berlin, Jelgava, London, Sarpsborg, and Vienna. The results show that besides population density, the possibility to use sustainable modes of transport highly depend on the land use mix, i.e. the allocation of facilities daily activities may be performed at in the vicinity of places of inhabitancy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Ebinur Lake Basin is an ecologically sensitive area in an arid region. Investigating its land use and land cover (LULC) change and assessing and predicting its ecosystem service value (ESV) are of great importance for the stability of the basin's socioeconomic development and sustainable development of its ecological environment. Based on LULC data from 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, we assessed the ESV of the Ebinur Lake Basin and coupled the grey multi-objective optimization model with the patch generation land use simulation model to predict ESV changes in 2035 under four scenarios: business-as-usual (BAU) development, rapid economic development (RED), ecological protection (ELP), and ecological–economic balance (EEB). The results show that from 1990 to 2020, the basin was dominated by grassland (51.23%) and unused land (27.6%), with a continuous decrease in unused land and an increase in cultivated land. In thirty years, the total ESV of the study area increased from 18.62 billion to 67.28 billion yuan, with regulation and support services being the dominant functions. By 2035, cultivated land increased while unused land decreased in all four scenarios compared with that in 2020. The total ESV in 2035 under the BAU, RED, ELP, and EEB scenarios was 68.83 billion, 64.47 billion, 67.99 billion, and 66.79 billion yuan, respectively. In the RED and EEB scenarios, ESV decreased by 2.81 billion and 0.49 billion yuan, respectively. In the BAU scenario, provisioning and regulation services increased by 6.05% and 2.93%, respectively. The ELP scenario, focusing on ecological and environmental protection, saw an increase in ESV for all services. This paper can assist policymakers in optimizing land use allocation and provide scientific support for the formulation of land use strategies and sustainable ecological and environmental development in the inland river basins of arid regions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Himalayan Mountain range is prone to landslides and its influential factors vary from region to region. To identify these factors, it is essential to have comprehensive information about the study area. This study aims to assess Landslide Susceptibility Mapping in parts of the Aglar watershed in the Lesser Himalayas using the frequency ratio method in the GIS environment. An inventory map in the first place of landslide events was prepared using satellite data and field survey studies. In this study, pertinently, sixteen conditioning factors were considered as slope, aspect, profile curvature, plan curvature, elevation, relative relief, geology, distance to stream, distance to road, normalized difference vegetation index, stream power index, topographic wetness index, rainfall, distance to lineaments, geomorphology, and land use land cover based on the local topography and climate. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the study area, subsequently, the frequency ratio of each factor was analyzed. This determined the correlation between landslide classes and each class of conditioning factors. A thorough analysis was conducted to select the most significant factors using the higher and lower prediction ratio values. This study was eventually conducted by comparing three susceptibility maps that were created based on prediction ratio values. To confirm the comparison, the ROC–AUC curve was utilized. The accuracy of the results was evaluated through a prediction rate and success rate curve, resulting in 78.5 and 80.7%, respectively, demonstrating a commendable performance. In this paper, the significance of different conditioning factors is evident in the increase of the very high susceptible area from 2.44 to 5.99% and eventually to 8.44%. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Mediterranean oak woodlands, Montados in Portugal and Dehesas in Spain have long been acknowledged as potential land use systems of high nature and social value providing relevant ecosystem services and biodiversity conservation. Nevertheless, these systems are now under severe threat, both due to abandonment in certain areas and overuse in others, extremes that may be limited by appropriate management practices and strategies. The High Nature Value concept can be a pathway for the understanding and assessment of management practices best adapted to the balance of the Montado and Dehesa, and also to the assessment of the thresholds of change, so that the long term sustainability of the Montado systems is preserved. This special issue aims to contribute for the understanding of how the Montado and Dehesa classification as High Nature Value may be a path for sustainable management. This classification can be achieved by different ways and implies different components of the Montado, and thus the first four papers of this special issue address different approaches and methodologies for the identification of HNV Dehesas and Montados, the following seven papers deal mostly with the effect of management practices on biodiversity and other Dehesas and Montados values and finally the last two papers address the causes for Montado decline and suggest mitigation measures for that decline. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: The study of sustainable land use reflects the interdisciplinary characteristics of land science, geography, ecology and sustainability science. In recent years, research on sustainable land use has rapidly increased in scope and speed around the world. Objectives: To discuss the trends, research power distribution, key areas, research hotspots and international cooperation in sustainable land use research in the past 20 years. Methods: This paper used the Bibliometrix and Biblioshiny software packages to entire process of bibliometric analysis and visual display of sustainable land use research papers from 1990 to 2019 (data update time is May 10, 2019). Results: (1) The amount of publications in the field of sustainable land use from 1990 to 2019 increased with time and entered a period of rapid growth after 2013. (2) From the perspective of research power, the influence of developed countries in the field of sustainable land use is significantly stronger than that of developing countries. (3) Through high-frequency keyword analysis, land use change, land degradation, and sustainable land management are hotspots in the field of sustainable land use. (4) The themes of sustainable land use have changed greatly in various periods, and some of the themes have strong continuity. Conclusions: In order to promote the development of sustainable land use, this paper proposes to integrate strong sustainability theory, landscape ecology theory, and geographical design concepts into this field, thereby greatly expanding the theoretical space. Also, this paper proposes to improve the scientificity of the evaluation indicators and use emerging technologies to timely monitor the status and evolution of land use, which can provide scientific basis and decision-making reference for the formulation of sustainable land use strategies, policies, and countermeasures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land-use/land-cover (LULC) change is considered a key human factor influencing groundwater recharge in floodplains. Without accurate estimations, the impact of LULC change on water balance components may be either significantly understated or exaggerated. This paper assesses the impacts of LULC changes from 1990 to 2018 on water balance components and groundwater levels of the Drava floodplain, Hungary, where human interference has led to a critical environmental situation. In this study, a spatially-distributed water balance model (WetSpass-M), and a groundwater flow model (MODFLOW-NWT) were integrated to assess the impacts of LULC changes. The moderate expansion of built-up areas increased surface runoff, while the afforestation of arable land and meadows and the overgrowth of bare mudflats with willow shrubs increased evapotranspiration. As a consequence, total annual groundwater recharge decreased by 5.3 × 107 m3 in the floodplain with an average of 335 mm year−1 and 317 mm year−1 in 2012 and 2018, respectively. Moreover, an average groundwater level decline by 0.1 m is observed in the same period. Declined groundwater recharge, increased runoff, and evapotranspiration exerted a negative effect on water resources in the Drava basin. The approach tested in this paper allows temporal and spatial estimation of hydrological components under the changes of LULC, providing quantitative information for decision-makers and stakeholders to implement efficient and sustainable management of water resources in the Drava floodplain. The provided integrated model is also applicable to regionally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Processing of hyperspectral remote sensing datasets poses challenges in terms of computational expense pertaining to data redundancy. As such, band selection becomes indispensable to address redundancy while preserving the optimal spectral information. This paper proposes a novel architecture using Genetic Algorithm (GA) optimizing technique with Random Forest (RF) classifier for efficient band selection with the Hyperspectral Precursor of the Application Mission (PRISMA) dataset. The optimal bands are BLUE (λ = 492.69 nm), NIR (λ = 959.52 nm), and SWIR 1 (λ = 1626.78 nm). This paper also involves an application of the selected bands to accurately identify and quantify built-up pixels by means of a new spectral index named Hyperspectral Imagery-based Built-up Index (HIBI). The proposed index was used to map built-up pixels in six cities around the world namely Jaipur, Varanasi, Delhi, Tokyo, Moscow and Jakarta to establish its robustness. This analysis shows that the proposed index has an accuracy of 94.02%, higher than all the other indices considered for this study. Moreover, the spectral separability analysis also establishes the efficiency of the proposed index to differentiate built-up pixels from spectrally similar land use or land cover classes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Studying the impact of large-scale ecological projects, such as the Grain-for-Green Program (GGP), on ecosystem services (ES) is currently a frontier and hot topic of ecological research. The GGP can directly change land use and land cover, thus affecting ES. By comparing the changes of ecosystem service value (ESV) and ecosystem service scarcity value (ESSV) in Qinghai before and after the implementation of the GGP, this paper clarified the impact of the GGP on Qinghai from the angles of ecology and economics. This paper quantified and evaluated the land use dynamics, ESV, and ESSV in Qinghai from 1995 to 2020. The results showed that in the past 25 years, the total annual Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of Qinghai showed a trend of sustained growth. From 1995 to 2020, the ESV increased by 6.80%. After considering supply and demand, the ESSV showed a continuous upward trend, increasing by 719.38%. After implementation of the GGP, the increase of NDVI inhibited the increase of the ESSV. These findings from evaluation of the effect of the GGP implementation provide a theoretical basis for future policy implementation and, in particular, a reference for the evaluation of the ESV and the ESSV in Qinghai. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The six northwestern provinces are much of the Chinese section of the "Silk Road Economic Belt", and the ecological environment is relatively fragile, with serious soil erosion, which, together with rapid economic and social development, may lead to changes in land use patterns and inadequate supply of ecosystem services, impacting China's regional ecological protection as well as the "Carbon Peak and Carbon Neutral" goals. This paper is designed to address the issue of land use change and inadequate supply of ecosystem services in six provinces in Northwest China. To this end, this paper has constructed three different levels of ecological security patterns in the study area based on the spatial–temporal pattern changes of land use and cold hotspot changes of ecological service value (ESV) in six provinces and regions in Northwest China. The results show that from 2000 to 2018, there is a significant increase around urban and rural construction land (66.06%) and a small decrease around grassland and water bodies (−1.72% and −13.53%) in the study area, with a large-scale interconversion of all categories. The ecological service value cold hotspot distribution is relatively stable in space and has little change in time. The ecological source areas of low, medium, and high ecological safety patterns are 9,889,930, 13,444,520 and 40,067,460 hm2, respectively, and the number of ecological corridors is 987, 1051 and 1063, with lengths of 5295.57 km, 5729.49 km, and 6566.69 km, respectively. The construction of ecological security pattern based on ecological service value can provide a reference for regional ecological protection and security. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The high-intensity exploitation of mineral resources in mining cities in China has created new environmental challenges and serious environmental situations in recent years. The land use patterns in mining areas change rapidly for natural and anthropogenic reasons. Land-use/land-cover (LU/LC) change is extremely important in the sustainable development of mining cities. Large-scale opencast coal mining results in the destruction of built-up land, industrial land and mining land as well as arable land resources. Therefore, the analysis of changes in mineral resources and arable land use has attracted increasing attention. With the development of remote sensing (RS) and deep learning (DL) technology, many forms of data for detecting land-use changes are available. The goal of this paper is to promote coordinated land-use development. In this study, an ensemble feature pyramid convolutional neural network model (EFPCNNM) approach, which combines the theory of convolutional neural network (CNN), feature pyramid (FP) and ensemble learning (EL), was used to analyze land-use change in the Longmen Mountain opencast coal mine area in Anqing City, Huaining County, Anhui Province, China. Unlike the CNN, and ensemble convolutional neural network model (ECNNM), which only used the high-level features to predict the ground objects, and the feature information of other layers was not fully considered, EFPCNNM enhanced the small target information in high-level features and improved the detection performance of significant ground object. EFPCNNM was highly portable and could be embedded in many models to further boost performance. Comparative experiments on support vector machine (SVM), extreme learning machine (ELM), artificial neural network (ANN), CNN and ECNNM methods demonstrated that the EFPCNNM could exceed the other models in terms of detection accuracy and inference speed, e.g., the overall accuracy was 93.5036%, kappa coefficient was 0.9423, and time was 2.7569 s. Multitemporal RS images from eight periods starting in 2005 and ending in 2019 were used as the land-use data. With a typical classification system and RS quantitative analysis, this paper also evaluated the temporal and spatial changes in arable land use in the mining area. Of all the land-use types, the area of arable land decreased the most over the study period, and the area of mining land and construction land increased the most. In addition, changes in the seepage area associated with collapse sites in the study area were analyzed. The results of this change detection process could provide decision support for the coordinated development of land use and mineral resources in mining areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study's overarching goal was to examine the dynamics of geomorphological interaction and their effects on the urban expansion of the Weija-Gbawe Municipality in Ghana's Greater Accra Region. The study deployed a quantitative research approach to achieve the objective. A descriptive research design was used in collecting and analyzing data from three hundred and fifty-one (351) participants with a closed-ended questionnaire. The study employed a cluster sampling technique to select the participants based on areas with high concentrations of built-ups and other areas with low concentrations. Using the important relative index (RII), the fundamental level is ranked by the index. SPSS version 26 was used to analyse the data, and the results are shown in a descriptive frequency distribution table. The findings revealed population growth in the Weija-Gbawe Municipality as the main human factor transforming the landscapes' geomorphology, as residents change the landscape for human occupation and industrial uses. Similarly, the topographical terrain, emphasizing slope and elevation were the predominant geomorphological characteristic modifying urban expansion in the Municipality, as settlements were mainly distributed on flat terrain, and the elevation and slope were significant constraints for expansion of the city. Furthermore, urban land utilization in the Weija Gbawe Municipality is distinguished by an industrialized economy and built-up facilities. The paper concludes that applying geographic information systems, remote sensing, and field surveys is essential for generating comprehensive knowledge of urban and anthropocene geomorphology; this is possible through the use of GIS and remote sensing in analyzing the land use land cover changes in the study area. The study suggests enacting, enforcing environmental by-laws, intensifying, and restructuring environmental education by various stakeholders, including the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Municipality's Physical Planning Agency (PPA). This could be done by bridging the weak linkage between land use/road planning and aborting applications received which were not in line with the planning standards and approving those that are accurate and standard. Highlights: Topography is a significant factor influencing urban development. Land utilization in Weija-Gbawe is predominantly commercial and domestic-based. Geographic Information Systems are reliable for gathering information about urban expansion. Population growth in Weija-Gbawe Municipality is the primary human factor. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The proposed paper is devoted to the analysis of the urbanization effects on soil cover using physico-chemical parameters and stable isotopic signatures on the example of Tyumen. The study methods included analysis of C and N elemental and isotope (δ13C and δ15N) composition, analysis of soil physico-chemical properties and major oxides content. The results of the survey have shown that soil properties within the city limits vary significantly depending on both anthropogenic activities and geomorphological context. The urban soils of Tyumen differ from very strongly acidic with pH values down to 4.8 to strongly alkaline with pH values reaching 8.9, and from sandy loams to silty loams by texture. The study results have shown that δ13C values varied from − 33.86 to − 25.14‰ and δ15N values varied in range, especially, from − 1.66 to 13.38‰. The range of these signatures was smaller than those reported for urbanized areas in Europe and USA. The δ13C values in our case were more related to the geological and landscape parameters of the study area, rather than with urban disturbances and development of urban ecosystems. At the same time, the δ15N values probably indicate zones with increased atmospheric N deposition in the case of Tyumen. The application δ13C and δ15N is a promising tool for analysis of urban soil disturbances and functions, though the regional context should be taken into account. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parking supply is one of the most neglected elements of the built environment in travel behavior research, despite evidence linking parking with vehicle use. As transportation impacts of new development are increasingly measured by vehicle miles traveled (VMT), explicitly connecting parking characteristics with vehicle travel is necessary to better inform transportation and land use policy. In this paper, we begin to address this research gap and explore the relationship between constrained parking and household VMT. Utilizing the 2017 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS) California add-on sample, we estimate residential parking constraint for households in Los Angeles County. Then, we develop a two-level model framework. Level 1 (Cost) models estimate travel costs, represented by vehicle ownership as a function of parking constraints, the built environment, and demographics. Level 2 (Demand) models regress household-level total and homebased-work VMT on predicted vehicle ownership, controlling for temporal and environmental characteristics. To further explore the relationship between parking and VMT by place type, we applied Level 1 and Level 2 models to develop a suite of scenarios for typical households in Los Angeles County. Our findings support the hypothesis that the built environment (including parking) influences VMT through travel costs (vehicle ownership). Results from scenarios analysis reveal constrained on-site residential parking (< 1 parking space per dwelling unit), accounts for an approximate 10–23 percentage-point decrease in VMT within each place type. Finally, implications for practice and future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Context: Theorizing complex phenomena like human–environment relationships is difficult and often of dubious explanatory value. If our goal is to understand causal interactions between people and the land and to explain environmental changes in the landscape, the more pressing need is for better causal–analytic methodology, not for more or better theory per se. Objectives: This paper presents a research methodology based on causal–historical analysis, called Abductive Causal Eventism (ACE), and makes the case that social scientists and environmental change researchers may benefit from adopting this instead of a theory-focused approach. Methods: ACE is described and its application illustrated by recent research on land use change and reforestation in Saint Lucia, West Indies. Key findings are related to the literature on so-called forest transitions (FTs). Results: Early writings about FTs sought to theorize the phenomenon, but studies have since revealed that FTs are the outcome of diverse causal pathways and contingent events. Likewise, Saint Lucia's recent FT reflects a variety of causal influences interacting in complex ways, and FTs have occurred there before. Conclusions: These findings counsel against hasty theorizing and policy prescription and highlight the advantages of a methodological approach (ACE) that is adaptable to different and changing contexts and accounts for both general and contingent causes. Theories and policy that emerge from ACE research will be the richer (and wiser) for it. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land resources and market-oriented reforms are crucial for high-quality agricultural development. This paper constructs a theoretical framework between land resources, market-oriented reforms and high-quality agricultural development by drawing on the relevant research results of new institutional economics; moreover, it empirically tests the impact of land resources and market-oriented reforms on high-quality agricultural development by using provincial panel data from China for the 2010–2020 period and utilizing the extended C-D function and spatial Durbin model. The results show that land resources and market-oriented reform can significantly and positively affect the level of high-quality agricultural development, while having significant negative spatial spillover effects on high-quality agricultural development. Therefore, this paper puts forward policy recommendations to promote high-quality agricultural development in terms of the rational use of land resources, promotion of agricultural market-oriented reforms, strengthening cooperation and exchanges among regions and developing agriculture according to local conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the effects of advancing deforestation in the southwestern Amazon on local hydroclimate. For this purpose, a high-resolution mesoscale model, coupled with a land surface model and a hydrologic routing model, is integrated for five years in two experiments, one control without changes in land use and another changing land use annually. During the rainy season, simulated higher precipitation volumes are reduced with the expansion of pasture lands. In the dry periods, mainly in August, there is an increase in precipitation over some deforested areas, which can be associated with mesoscale circulations induced by the heterogeneous surface. In general, land-use changes reduce evapotranspiration and the net radiation at the surface and increase the sensible heat flux during the dry season. In the rainy period, there is an increase in evapotranspiration with the intensification of deforestation, which modifies the other components of energy balance. Results suggest that the impact of LUCC on the local climate is more affected by conditions that generate precipitation extremes (El Niño/La Niña events) than by the abrupt increase in the annual deforestation rate. Land-use changes reduce the streamflow in all sub-basins of Ji-Parana during the dry season. In the rainy season, LUCC increases the streamflow during periods with normal precipitation conditions and La Niña in almost all sub-basins, except in the sub-basin with more than 20% deforestation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]