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Recently, the Chinese government has implemented stringent water requirements based on the concept of 'Basing four aspects on water resources'. However, existing research has inadequately addressed the constraints of water resources on population, city boundaries, land, and production, failing to adequately analyze the interplay between water resource limitations and urban development. Recognizing the interconnectedness between urban water use and economic development, a multi-objective model becomes crucial for optimizing urban water resources. This study establishes a nonlinear multi-objective water resources joint optimization model, aligning with the "Basing four aspects on water resources" requirement to maximize urban GDP and minimize total water use. A genetic algorithm (NSGA-II Algorithm) is applied to solve this complex nonlinear multi-objective model and obtain the Pareto solution set, addressing information loss inherent in the traditional water quota method. The model was tested in Wujiang District, an area located in China's Jiangsu Province that has been rapidly urbanizing over the past few decades, and yielded 50 non-inferior water resource optimization schemes. The results reveal that the Pareto solution set visually illustrates the competition among objectives and comprehensively displays the interplay between water and urban development. The model takes a holistic approach to consider the relationships between water resources and urban population, land use, and industries, clearly presenting their intricate interdependencies. This study serves as a valuable reference for the rational optimization of water resources in urban development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Instantaneous precipitation can often cause devastating disasters on the Earth's surface. Continuous increases in extreme precipitation around the world have caused widespread concern, and it is necessary to study the extreme hourly precipitation over a large scale and long time series. Using specific numbers of unique hourly precipitation point data from 1980 to 2019, our research found that there are different spatial patterns regarding the frequency and intensity of extreme hourly precipitation in Mainland China, but the clear spatial pattern of being weak in the west and strong in the east of China. Most extreme hourly precipitation events occurred from June to August in the north of China and from April to October in the south of China. Afternoon and midnight are the peak periods of extreme precipitation events in southern China. The frequency of extreme hourly precipitation in the whole of China had increased by 0.7 hr/10a and increased significantly in the northwest and southeast of China. The average intensity of extreme hourly precipitation has decreased by 0.1 mm·hr−1/10a in the whole of China. While the maximum intensity has increased in local areas, the trend of changes is not significant in the whole of China. We have discovered that rapid urbanization is likely to be responsible for the frequency of extreme hourly precipitation in China. It is urgent to enact flood protection measures because this change is expected to worsen in the future with intensified urbanization in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wetland cities were proposed by the International Wetland Convention Organization for the protection of urban wetlands. Few studies have performed land cover classifications for internationally recognized wetland cities or explored what contribution the classification results can make to the establishment of additional wetland cities to date. Based on Sentinel-1 and 2 data, this study used a 10-fold random forest method to classify the land cover of the first six wetland cities recognized in China. A land cover dataset, which had a resolution of 10 m and included four wetland types, was obtained and the wetland area and protected wetland areas of the six cities were calculated. The results showed that (1) the classification accuracy of six cities was good, the overall accuracy was above 90%, and the Kappa coefficient was above 0.88. (2) Cropland or forested areas were the most common non-wetland land coverage type in wetland cities and accounted for more than 20% or 40% of the land coverages, while water was the most common wetland type and accounted for more than 2% of the land coverages. From 2015 to 2020, the built area in most cities increased, while cropland and forest decreased significantly. (3) The wetland rate was 6.68–37.56% and the wetland protection rate was 49.48–73.74% in the six wetland cities. From 2015 to 2020, the wetland rate of the six cities were relatively stable, and the wetland protection rate of inland cities (Yinchuan, Changde, Harbin and Changshu) increased significantly, while those of coastal cities (Haikou and Dongying) decreased, which might be related to the change in coastline. Therefore, we found that the wetlands in these cities were well protected. Land cover classification for wetland cities can provide a reference for using remote sensing techniques used to monitor internationally wetland cities while also supporting the creation of additional wetland cities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Land surface soil moisture (SM) plays a critical role in hydrological processes and terrestrial ecosystems in desertification areas. Passive microwave remote-sensing products such as the Soil Moisture Active Passive (SMAP) satellite have been shown to monitor surface soil water well. However, the coarse spatial resolution and lack of full coverage of these products greatly limit their application in areas undergoing desertification. In order to overcome these limitations, a combination of multiple machine learning methods, including multiple linear regression (MLR), support vector regression (SVR), artificial neural networks (ANNs), random forest (RF) and extreme gradient boosting (XGB), have been applied to downscale the 36 km SMAP SM products and produce higher-spatial-resolution SM data based on related surface variables, such as vegetation index and surface temperature. Desertification areas in northern China, which are sensitive to SM, were selected as the study area, and the downscaled SM with a resolution of 1 km on a daily scale from 2015 to 2020 was produced. The results showed a good performance compared with in situ observed SM data, with an average unbiased root mean square error value of 0.057 m 3 m -3. In addition, their time series were consistent with precipitation and performed better than common gridded SM products. The data can be used to assess soil drought and provide a reference for reversing desertification in the study area. This dataset is freely available at 10.6084/m9.figshare.16430478.v6 (Rao et al., 2022). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Hebei Province of China is facing a severe water resource shortage, making it urgent to formulate economical and effective water conservation policies. However, few studies have focused on analyzing the resource and economic impacts of a water policy. This study developed an improved computable general equilibrium (CGE) model with an extended water resources module as a policy analysis tool. The extended water resources module includes different water resources as commodities and water sectors, and introduces a substitution mechanism among the water resources. Policy scenarios containing different policy types and policy objects were established, including water price, technology (tech) improvement, structure adjustment, and water reuse policies in primary, secondary, and tertiary sectors. The impact on the water resource and economy of the scenarios was analyzed using the CGE model. The recommended policies include: an agricultural technology improvement policy that decreases groundwater usage by 240 hm3; an industrial technology improvement policy under which water usage per 10,000 CNY of industrial added value decreases by 13%; an industrial water reuse policy that increases unconventional water usage by 20%; and a structure adjustment policy to increase the proportion of the tertiary sector. The study provides an analysis tool for simulating and evaluating a water resource policy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

[Display omitted] • The export coefficient model was improved by integrating a grid-based rainfall-runoff module. • It analyzed spatiotemporal characteristics of the non-point source nutrient loads into the rivers. • Impacts of the non-point source nutrient loads on the river water quality was discussed. Accurately quantifying the spatiotemporal nutrient loads from nonpoint sources (NPSs) is still difficult due to the high spatial heterogeneity and temporal variability in rainfall-runoff processes. The export coefficient model (ECM) is a widely used tool to estimate the NPS nutrient load on an annual time scale, but it hardly considers the spatiotemporal distribution of the export coefficient. To address this issue, the ECM is improved by incorporating a grid-based rainfall-runoff module together with land-use data and analysing the spatiotemporal characteristics of the NPS nutrient loads in Yancheng city located in eastern China. Moreover, the effect of NPS nutrient loads on river water quality is assessed using a conceptual model. The results indicate that the improved ECM can simulate reasonable spatiotemporal variation in NPS nutrient loads, and the relative error in the total phosphorus (TP) load is less than 17.14 %. Precipitation has a considerable influence on both the total nitrogen (TN) and TP loads, which varied greatly from 1990 to 2018, with average annual values of 30.57 × 103 tons and 2.44 × 103 tons, respectively. The spatial distributions of the TN and TP loads were greatly affected by land-use patterns, and bodies of water and rural land had relatively high load intensities. Both TN and TP concentrations in the river exceeded the national standard, but TP was significantly reduced in the past 10 years, while TN was still at high level. This study provides a reference for reducing the river pollution in Yancheng city, especially by identifying pollution sources requiring priority control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Water pollution poses threats to urban environments and subsequently impacts the ecological health and sustainable development of urban areas. Identifying the spatiotemporal variation in non-point sources (NPS) pollution is a prerequisite for improving water quality. This paper aimed to assess the NPS pollution load and then recognized the spatiotemporal characteristics of the pollution sources in a typical urbanized area. A combination model based on land use type was used to simulate the NPS pollution load. The results showed the following: (1) ponds and farmlands had higher pollution production intensities than other land use types, but the intensity and magnitude of pollution emissions were generally greater in urban areas; (2) monthly and annual total nitrogen (TN) and total phosphorus (TP) emissions had the same pattern as rainfall, and TN and TP emissions accounted for 56.2% and 58.0%, respectively, of the total in summer; (3) TN pollution was more serious than TP pollution in the study area, especially in farmlands; (4) urban runoff (UR) and livestock and poultry breeding (LPB) were the main sources of NPS, TN and TP emissions in the study area. If these NPS pollutants cannot be removed from this area, a large amount of freshwater is needed to dilute the current rivers to meet the requirement of the fourth category of China national environmental quality standards for surface water. This problem is serious in the control of polluted rivers in many cities throughout China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Due to the widespread presence of noise, such as clouds and cloud shadows, continuous, high spatiotemporal-resolution dynamic monitoring of lake water extents is still limited using remote sensing data. This study aims to take an approach to mapping continuous time series of highly-accurate lake water extents. Four lakes from diverse regions of China were selected as cases. In order to reduce the impact of noise and ensure high spatial and temporal resolution of the final results, two sets of MODIS products (including MOD09A1 and MOD13Q1) are used to extract water bodies. This approach mainly comprises preliminary classification, post processing and data fusion. The preliminary classification used the Random Forest (RF) classifier to efficiently and automatically obtain the initial classification results. Post-processing is implemented to repair the classification results affected by noise as much as possible. The processed results of the two sets of products are fused by using the Homologous Data-Based Spatial and Temporal Adaptive Fusion Method (HDSTAFM), which reduces the effect of noise and also improve the temporal and spatial resolution for the final water results. We determined the accuracy using Landsat-based water results, and the values of overall accuracy (OA), user's accuracy (UA), producer's accuracy (PA), and kappa coefficients (KC) are mostly greater than 0.9. Good correlation was achieved for a time series of water area and altimetry data, obtained by multiple satellites, and also for water-level data selected from hydrological stations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The use of remote sensing to monitor surface water bodies has gradually matured. Long-term serial water change analysis and floods monitoring are currently research hotspots of remote sensing hydrology. However, these studies are also faced with some problems, such as coarse temporal or spatial resolution of some remote sensing data. In general, flood monitoring requires high temporal resolution, and small-scale surface water extraction requires high spatial resolution. The machine learning method has been proven to be effective against long-term serial surface water extraction, such as random forests (RFs). MODIS data are well suited for large-scale surface water dynamic analysis and flood monitoring because of its short return cycle and medium spatial resolution. In this paper, the Yangtze River Basin (YRB) in China was selected as the study area, and two MODIS products (MOD09A1 and MOD13Q1) and RF method were used to extract the surface water from 2000 to 2016. Considering the disadvantages of temporal or spatial resolution of these two MODIS products, this study also presents a data fusion method to combine them and get higher spatiotemporal resolution water results. Finally, 762 surface water maps from 2000 to 2016 are obtained, whose temporal and spatial resolution is every eight days and 250 m, respectively. In addition, water extent variation is analyzed and compared to observed precipitation data. The main conclusions are as follows: (1) this constructed approach for long-term serial surface water extraction based on the RF classifier is feasible, and a good fusion method is used to obtain the surface water body with higher spatiotemporal resolution; (2) the maximum area of the surface water extent is 48.53 × 103 km2, and seasonal and permanent water areas are 20.51 × 103 km2 and 28.01 × 103 km2, respectively; (3) surface water area is increasing in the YRB, such that seasonal water area decreased by 3450 km2, and the permanent water area increased by 3565 km2 in 2001–2015; (4) precipitation is the main factor causing variation in the surface water bodies, and they both show an increasing trend in 2000–2016. As such, the approach is worth referring to other remote sensing applications, and these products are very both valuable for water resource management and flood monitoring in the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

China, the largest coal consumer in the world, is one of the countries that experience the most coal fires. Hence, it is critical for China to monitor coal fires and carry out coal fire monitoring, assessment, and appropriate suppression work. The Wuda coalfield, located in China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, was selected as the study area. This paper was aiming to analyze spatiotemporal changes of coal fires located in Wuda of China from 2000 to 2015 and focused on the assessment of fire protection project during 2006–2008. Landsat Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus images were used to detect changes in coal fires over the last 16 years by utilizing a generalized single-channel method to retrieve land surface temperature data and natural breaks extracting coal fire zones. The results showed that: 1) the changes of coal fires area represented obvious three stages: Stage I (2000–2006) was before the fire suppression project with fire spread and expansion; Stage II (2006–2008) was the implementation of this project with rapid reduction of fire area; Stage III (2008–2015) was after this project with stable fire area at a low level; 2) the fire suppression work was highly successful; the area of coal fires basically remained at 192.98 ha, a reduction by 45.74% from 2000 and 62.40% from 2006 (before fire suppression projects); 3) fire suppression work in the south (zone F) and in the northwest (zone A) was the most successful, while some new patches sporadically appeared in other regions (zone B, C and D); 4) coal fire suppression methods have led to significant destruction of local geomorphology; 5) it was difficult to completely extinct coal fires underground with current suppression method. Compared with previous studies, this research paid more attention to the estimation of fire suppression projections which provided an available way for environment decision makers and coal energy producers to qualitatively assess the status and effectiveness of coal fire suppression projects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]