Functional Responses of Phytoplankton Assemblages to Watershed Land Use and Environmental Gradients

Watershed land-use changes have been identified as major threats to lake fauna, subsequently affecting ecosystem functioning. In this study, the functional-based approach was used to examine the effects of land use and environmental changes on phytoplankton communities in four selected lakes in Northeast China. We also identified the sensitive functional traits as indicators of environmental stressors. The integration of RLQ analysis with the fourth-corner approach significantly identified five of 18 functional trait categories, including flagella, filamentous, unicellular, mixotrophic, and chlorophyll c, as potential indicators to changes in watershed land-use intensity and environmental gradients. Significant relationships between traits and land use and water quality highlighted the consequential indirect impact of extensive agricultural and urban development on phytoplankton via allochthonous nutrient inputs and various contaminants. In addition, the functional richness of phytoplankton assemblages generally increased along with surface area and forests, but decreased along with intensive agricultural and urban land use, implying that functional homogenization may cause a reduction in ecosystem productivity and reliability to land-use intensity. Given the superior performance of the functional-based approach, our findings also highlighted the importance of the application of both the biological traits and functional diversity index in monitoring programs for lake ecosystems.

Assessment of Ecosystem Health and Its Key Determinants in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River Urban Agglomeration, China

Urban agglomerations have gradually formed in different Chinese cities, exerting great pressure on the ecological environment. Ecosystem health is an important index for the evaluation of the sustainable development of cities, but it has rarely been used for urban agglomerations. In this study, the ecosystem health in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River Urban Agglomeration was assessed using the ecosystem vigor, organization, resilience, and services framework at the county scale. A GeoDetector was used to determine the effects of seven factors on ecosystem health. The results show that: (1) The spatial distribution of ecosystem health differs significantly. The ecosystem health in the centers of Wuhan Metropolis, Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan City Group, and Poyang Lake City Group is significantly lower than in surrounding areas. (2) Temporally, well-level research units improve gradually; research units with relatively weak levels remain relatively stable. (3) The land use degree is the main factor affecting ecosystem health, with interactions between the different factors. The effects of these factors on ecosystem health are enhanced or nonlinear; (4) The effect of the proportion of construction land on ecosystem health increases over time. The layout used in urban land use planning significantly affects ecosystem health.

Using weighted multilayer networks to uncover scaling of public transport system

The public transport system is considered as one of the most important subsystems in metropolises for achieving sustainability objectives by mediating resources and travel demand. Representing the various urban transport networks is crucial in understanding travel behavior and the function of the transport system. However, previous studies have ignored the coupling relationships between multi-mode transport networks and travel flows. To address this problem, we constructed a multilayer network to illustrate two modes of transport (bus and metro) by assigning weights of travel flow and efficiency. We explored the scaling of the public transport system to validate the multilayer network and offered new visions for transportation improvements by considering population. The proposed methodology was demonstrated by using public transport datasets of Shanghai, China. For both the bus network and multilayer network, the scaling of node degree versus Population were explored at 1 km * 1 km urban cells. The results suggested that in the multilayer network, the scaling relations between node degree and population can provide valuable insights into quantifying the integration between the public transport system and urban land use, which will benefit sustainable improvements to cities.

The Detection of Changes in Land Use and Land Cover of Al- Kut City Using Geographic Information System (GIS)

Models of digital elevation (DEMs), which provide elevation information for the ground surface of the catchment, are core components of computer-based analyzes for drainage basins. Many production methods are available, including contour interpolation, DGPS (Differential Global Positioning System) interpolation, and digital photogrammetry techniques. However, data on the precision and often contradictory nature of these three techniques are sparse. This study aims at identifying some of the contributing factors and comparing the accuracy of various approaches quantitatively. Changes in land coverage break ecosystem cycles, which may directly affect land ability to sustain human activity resulting in long-term trends of decline and inter-annual variability. It can be monitored at a spatial level of detail to enable the study of human-induced changes. Remote sensing techniques (RS) and geographical information system (GIS) methods have been used to extract the spatial and temporal changes of urban land use in the city of Al-Kut. The land sat satellite images taken in periods encompassing 1997, 2007, and 2017 are used. As a result, the city has lost a large part of its urban specificity and gained randomness and disorder in most of its residential neighborhoods, which was especially exacerbated after the change in the governing system in 2003. The results show an increase of 314% and 219% in industrial and residential areas, respectively, whereas agricultural land and open spaces have decreased by 66 % and 32%. The data analysis reveals a diagnostic relationship between land-use conversion and socio-economic drivers. This research sheds light on the total area changes of the Al-Kut city before and after 2003. It highlights the significant destruction of the city life, which was established over almost three centuries.

Sustainable Resilience in Urban Land Use

Humanity is facing a series of important challenges, global warming being one the most important. Consequently, sustainability and resilience have become key elements in providing a better response to the crisis and in maintaining an equilibrium between ecology, economics, and various social domains. The design and use of urban land should consider the inclusion of a multi-functional green infrastructure to obtain different benefits, from ecosystem services to value creation. Additionally, the urban land-use planning system contributes to economic growth, social development, and environmental sustainability, while biodiversity is able to provide renewal and reorganization capacities for changes in social-ecosystems. All these elements bring forth a different paradigm for the future decisions of communities.

Sustainability and Green Socio-ecosystem Resilience

Humanity is facing a series of critical challenges, global warming being one the most important. Consequently, sustainability and resilience have become key elements in better response to the crisis and maintaining an equilibrium between ecology, economics, and various social domains. The design and use of urban land should consider including a multi-functional green infrastructure to obtain different benefits, from ecosystem services to value creation. Additionally, the urban land-use planning system contributes to economic growth, social development and environmental sustainability, while biodiversity can provide renewal and reorganization capacities for changes in the social-ecosystems. All these elements bring forth a different paradigm for the future decisions of communities. Paper seeks to synthesize Keywords: Resilience, sustainability, urban land use.

Model of Entrepreneurial Inclusive Civil Culture

This research aims to analyze the model of entrepreneurial inclusive civic culture created and developed in the Agro Ecological Park of Zapopan (PAZ). Based on the need to rescue vacant urban land use with the participation of residents residing in the surrounding colonies, social movements, civil society, and local government, they have designed and implemented actions to create PAZ (PEACE) as an area of green innovation. In addition to the cultivation of vegetables, vegetables, medicinal plants, and decoration under relations of cooperation, trust, and community support, the formation of social capital that sustains a culture of peace based on environmental sustainability activities. The results of the implementation of this project, born from bottom of the social and power structures, constitute a significant experience in the regeneration of public spaces and green areas that provides greater economic efficiency in terms of family income, a greater relevance of equity, inclusion and social justice, and improvement of environmental sustainability.

The Influence of Land Use Evolution on the Visitor Economy in Wuhan from the Perspective of Ecological Service Value

This research used transfer matrix, dynamic attitude, and a linear regression model to investigate the characteristics of land-use change and evolution of ecological service values and their impacts on Wuhan’s visitor economy. The results showed that: (1) the land-use scale in the Wuhan metropolitan area changed significantly from 1990 to 2018. The area of arable land, forest land, and grassland decreased at a faster rate, whereas that of water and construction land continued to increase; (2) there were differences in the dynamic attitudes of land-use at different stages. The dynamic attitude of construction land-use changed the most with cultivated land, water area, forest land, unused land, and grassland. From 1990 to 2005, land-use change exhibited a relatively gentle trend, whereas from 2005 to 2020, it accelerated; (3) although land-use regulation service, support service, and cultural service values positively responded to tourism economic growth, their influences were dissimilar. This study clarifies the effects of urban land-use on tourism economic development and provides a reference for its effective control.

Effects of Urbanization on the Dynamics and Equity of Access to Urban Parks from 2000 to 2015 in Beijing, China

Urban parks provide multiple ecosystem services as an important element of the urban space and improve human health and wellbeing. This study used the Gaussian-based 2SFCA method to evaluate the spatiotemporal distribution of and changes in park accessibility within the Sixth Ring Road in Beijing over 15 years. The study also used bivariate correlation analysis to analyze the relationship between urbanization factors and park access. The results showed that the overall park accessibility in both quantity and proximity had increased from 2000 to 2015, but there were still certain areas (percentage) that had limited access to parks. The inequity of distribution in park accessibility had been detected accompanying the rapid increase in park quantity in 2015. Furthermore, the development of urban parks mismatched that of urbanization in terms of urban land increase. The correlation between accessibility changes and population urbanization is not significant. Proper urban green space planning based on the distribution of population density and urban land use is indispensable in avoiding the aggravation of inequity in the process of urban expansion. This study contributes to the assessment of the current park allocation efficiency and helps urban planners and policymakers make prompt adjustments in the rapidly urbanizing process.

A Two-Stage Fuzzy Optimization Model for Urban Land Use: A Case Study of Chongzhou City

Under the background of New-type Urbanization, with the continuous advancement of urbanization and the all-round development of cities, all kinds of demands are also rising. In the case of demand, it is difficult to quickly adjust from the land supply side and to guide the optimization of the structure and layout of land use is one of the methods to achieve this based on the current situation and shortage of urban land use structure and spatial arrangement. Because of the complexity, uncertainty and dynamics of the land use system, it is necessary to use an uncertain model to accurately describe and propose the approximate optimal solution, so this study analyzes the influencing mechanism of land use and optimize the land use structure under uncertainties by using a Bayesian network and fuzzy mathematical programming. Based on the results of the two stages of analysis, the cellular automata simulation is completed. The framework is applied to Chongzhou city in western China. The results indicated that the optimal land space for cultivated land is in the middle and the south based on the joint influence probability of arable land and urban construction land. The conversion probability of the area near the east is low, and the joint impact probability of construction land in all areas is generally similar except for the western protection area. After the optimization of the fuzzy planning, the optimal construction land scale is 69.42 km2. Under the condition that the cultivated land’s red line is guaranteed, there is still 98.87 km2 of space for the increase in cultivated land. It is found through simulation that the increase in construction land would occur in the central and western parts of Chongzhou, which may be caused by the urban siphon effect. According to Monte Carlo verification, when the conversion probability exceeds 50%, the cultivated land could be turned into urban construction land, with an accuracy of 91.99%. Therefore, this proposed framework is helpful to understand the process of land use and provides a reference for making scientific and reasonable territorial spatial planning and guiding land use practice under uncertainties.