Dynamic Landscape Fragmentation and the Driving Forces on Haitan Island, China

Island ecosystems have distinct and unique vulnerabilities that place them at risk from threats to their ecology and socioeconomics. Spatially exhibiting the fragmentation process of island landscapes and identifying their driving factors are the fundamental prerequisites for the maintenance of island ecosystems and the rational utilization of islands. Haitan Island was chosen as a case study for understanding landscape fragmentation on urbanizing Islands. Based on remote sensing technology, three Landsat images from 2000 to 2020, landscape pattern index, transect gradient analysis, and moving window method were used in this study. The results showed that from 2000 to 2020, impervious land increased by 462.57%. In 2000, the predominant landscape was cropland (46.34%), which shifted to impervious land (35.20%) and forest (32.90%) in 2020. Combining the moving window method and Semivariogram, 1050 m was considered to be the best scale to reflect the landscape fragmentation of Haitan Island. Under this scale, it was found that the landscape fragmentation of Haitan Island generally increased with time and had obvious spatial heterogeneity. We set up sampling bands along the coastline and found that the degree of landscape fragmentation, advancing from the coast inland, was decreasing. Transects analysis showed the fragmentation intensity of the coastal zone: the north-western and southern wooded zones decreased, while the concentration of urban farmland in the north-central and southern areas increased. The implementation of a comprehensive experimental area plan on Haitan Island has disturbed the landscape considerably. In 2000, landscape fragmentation was mainly influenced by topography and agricultural production. The critical infrastructure construction, reclamation and development of landscape resources have greatly contributed to the urbanisation and tourism of Haitan Island, and landscape fragmentation in 2013 was at its highest. Due to China’s “Grain for Green Project” and the Comprehensive Territorial Spatial Planning policy (especially the protection of ecological control lines), the fragmentation of Haitan Island was slowing. This study investigated the optimal spatial scale for analyzing spatiotemporal changes in landscape fragmentation on Haitan Island from 2000 to 2020, and the essential influencing factors in urban islands from the perspective of natural environment and social development, which could provide a basis for land use management and ecological planning on the island.

The Construction of Ecological Security Patterns in Coastal Areas Based on Landscape Ecological Risk Assessment—A Case Study of Jiaodong Peninsula, China

Increasing land utilization, population aggregation and strong land–sea interaction make coastal areas an ecologically fragile environment. The construction of an ecological security pattern is important for maintaining the function of the coastal ecosystem. This paper takes Jiaodong Peninsula in China, a hilly coastal area, as an example for evaluating landscape ecological risk within a comprehensive framework of “nature–neighborhood–landscape”, based on spatial principal component analysis, and it constructs the ecological security pattern based on the minimum cumulative resistance model (MCR). The results showed that the overall level of ecological risk in the study area was medium. The connectivity between the areas of low landscape ecological risk was relatively low, and the high risk areas were concentrated in the north of the Peninsula. A total of 11 key ecological corridors of three types (water, green space and road corridors) and 105 potential corridors were constructed. According to the ecological network pattern, landscape ecological optimization suggestions were proposed: key corridors in the north and south of Jiaodong Peninsula should be connected; urban development should consider current ecological sources and corridors to prevent landscape fragmentation; and the ecological roles of potential corridors should be strengthened. This paper can provide a theoretical and practical basis for ecological planning and urban master planning in coastal areas in the future.

Intelligent Mining of Urban Ventilation Corridors Based on High-Precision Oblique Photographic Images

With the advancement of urbanization and the impact of industrial pollution, the issue of urban ventilation has attracted increasing attention. Research on urban ventilation corridors is a hotspot in the field of urban planning. Traditional studies on ventilation corridors mostly focus on qualitative or simulated research on urban climate issues such as the intensified urban heat island effect, serious environmental pollution, and insufficient climate adaptability. Based on the high-precision urban remote sensing image data obtained by aeromagnetic oblique photography, this paper calculates the frontal area density of the city with reference to the urban wind statistics. Based on the existing urban patterns, template matching technology was used to automatically excavate urban ventilation corridors, which provides scientific and reasonable algorithmic support for the rapid construction of potential urban ventilation corridor paths. It also provides technical methods and decision basis for low-carbon urban planning, ecological planning and microclimate optimization design. This method was proved to be effective through experiments in Deqing city, Zhejiang Province, China.

Assessment and Estimation of the Spatial and Temporal Evolution of Landscape Patterns and Their Impact on Habitat Quality in Nanchang, China

Assessing and predicting the evolution of habitat quality based on land use change under the process of urbanization is important for establishing a comprehensive ecological planning system and addressing the major challenges of global sustainable development. Here, two different prediction models were used to simulate the land use changes in 2025 based on the land use distribution data of Nanchang city in three periods and integrated into the habitat quality assessment model to specifically evaluate the trends and characteristics of future habitat quality changes, explore the impact of landscape pattern evolution on habitat, and analyze the differences and advantages of the two prediction models. The results show that the overall habitat quality in Nanchang declined significantly during the period 1995–2015. Habitat degradation near cities and in various watersheds is relatively significant. During the period 2015–2025, the landscape pattern and habitat quality of Nanchang will continue to maintain the trend of changes observed between 1995 and 2015, i.e., increasing construction land and decreasing habitat quality, with high pressure on ecological restoration. This study also identified that CA-Markov simulates the quantity of land use better, while FLUS simulates the spatial pattern of land use better. Overall, this study provides a reference for exploring the complex dynamic evolution mechanism of habitats.

Birds specimens of the zoological collection of the Universidad de Nariño, Colombia

We provide a complete dataset of bird specimens of the zoological collection at the Universidad de Nariño, Colombia. For every specimen, we reviewed taxonomic identifications to species level by applying curatorial procedures, including the comparison of skins, the use of taxonomic keys and primary literature, and by confirming georeferenced locality data. We present 1249 specimens from 419 species. Most records come from ecosystems in southwestern Colombia, department of Nariño. All records are in the Darwin Core standard and have been made available through the Colombian biodiversity portal (SiB-Colombia) and the GBIF. In addition, we projected these bird occurrences in a geographic context to analyze the density, representation of ecosystems, biogeographic regions, and administrative units (municipalities). We also examine the representation of relevant species regarding their endemism, migratory, or conservation status. With this information, we want to support research and training initiatives to support ecological planning with biogeographic approaches to understand the temporal changes in bird faunas.

Improving Land Use Planning through the Evaluation of Ecosystem Services: One Case Study of Quyang County

Competition for land is increasing as demand for multiple land uses and ecosystem services rises. Land regulation of the principles of landscape ecology is necessary to develop more sustainable approaches to land use planning. The research evaluated the present land patterns and determined best practices for its regulation of Dongwang Township in Quyang County, located in the Taihang Mountain area of Hebei Province, China. The research used the landscape ecology theory to construct an index system for landscape pattern analysis based on the GIS and Fragstats 3.3 software. In this study, we examined the specific reasons that landscape ecology is superior to traditional methods in land consolidation planning and design, which is conducive to the comprehensive development of land ecological benefits. Landscape ecological planning can effectively reduce landscape fragmentation and improve intensive management. The result found that the descending order of the Shannon index was current landscape, landscape ecological planning, and traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning could protect the natural diversity than traditional planning. Landscape ecological planning enables the creation of long corridors, with higher densities and connectivity and lower average corridor widths than traditional planning. Besides, it can improve ecological service function values in the study area to varying degrees, thus discouraging residents from limiting themselves to grain production. This research has great potential to improve the visibility of ecosystem services in local land use planning and, thus, to improve the ecological functioning of future landscapes.

Land Use Suitability Analysis for Sustainability of Water Resources

Cities are developing and spreading in an unplanned way with urbanization and rapid population growth. Natural resources such as forests and agricultural lands and water resources are the primary sources that are changed and consumed due to urbanization. This situation poses serious threats especially on drinking water basins. The aim of this study is to identify the threats of urbanization pressure on the basins, to analyze the changing landscapes and to determine suitable areas for settlement and agricultural areas for the sustainability of the basin. Sapanca Basin, chosen as the study area, is a crucial drinking water basin for Turkey. The reason for choosing this area is that the basin is under the pressure of construction as a result of the increasing population and secondary housing demand in recent years, and this situation shows a visible change in the landscapes of the basin. In this context, suitability analyzes were made for the determination of settlement and agricultural areas in order to ensure the ecological sustainability of the basin and to give a direction of the development of the basin. These analyzes have been made by considering McHarg's suitable land use method in ecological planning. For suitability analysis, ecological data have been synthesized and suitability maps have been formed by overlay method in GIS environment. Land use maps were produced for the basin and these maps were compared with the environmental plan. It has been determined that a large part of the basin is not suitable for settlement. As a result, it has been determined that the residential areas in the basin increased by 200% between the years 2000-2018. This increase was especially on forest areas and agricultural areas. As a result of these changes, the landscape is fragmented and its natural ecosystem is deteriorated. With the study, the current situation of settlement and agricultural areas in the basin was interpreted and suggestions were developed on how these areas should develop in the basin.

Application of Edge Computing Technology in Hydrological Spatial Analysis and Ecological Planning

The process of rapid urbanization causes so many water security issues such as urban waterlogging, environmental water pollution, water shortages, etc. It is, therefore, necessary for us to integrate a variety of theories, methods, measures, and means to conduct ecological problem diagnosis, ecological function demand assessment, and ecological security pattern planning. Here, EC (Edge Computing) technology is applied to analyze the hydrological spatial structure characteristics and ecological planning method of waterfront green space. First, various information is collected and scientifically analyzed around the core element of ecological planning: water. Then, in-depth research is conducted on the previous hydrological spatial analysis methods to identify their defects. Subsequently, given these defects, the EC technology is introduced to design a bottom-up overall architecture of intelligent ecological planning gateway, which can be divided into field devices, EC intelligent planning gateway, transmission system, and cloud processing platform. Finally, the performance of the overall architecture of the intelligent ecological planning gateway is tested. The study aims to optimize the performance of the hydrological spatial analysis method and ecological planning method in Xianglan town of Jiamusi city. The results show that the system can detect the flood control safety system planning, analysis of water source pollution. Additionally, the system also can use the EC technology, depending on the types, hydrological characteristics, pollutants to predict treatment sludge need to put in the pollutant treatment medicament composition and dosage, protection of water source nearby residents public health security. Compared with previous hydrological spatial analysis and ecological planning methods, the system is more scientific, efficient, and expandable. The results provide a technical basis for the research in related fields.

Analysis of Landscape Ecological Planning Based on the High-Order Multiwavelet Neural Network Algorithm

Landscape architecture has both natural and social properties, which is the embodiment of people protecting the natural environment. Since the industrial revolution, the modern industry has developed rapidly. It has increased the living standard of people and consumed a lot of natural resources such as forest and energy. The ecological environment has been greatly damaged, and the landscape of gardens has been affected. Therefore, it is of great significance to find a method to evaluate the landscape ecology and plan the landscape ecology. This paper proposes a new high-order wavelet neural network algorithm combining wavelet analysis and artificial neural network. A model of ecological evaluation of landscape based on high-order wavelet neural network algorithm is proposed to evaluate the landscape ecology and provide reference data for the ecological planning of the landscape. The results show that the training times of the wavelet neural network to achieve the target accuracy are 3600 times less than those of the BP neural network. The MSE and MAE of the WNN are 0.0639 and 0.1501, respectively. The average error of the model to the comprehensive evaluation index of the landscape ecology is 0.005. The accuracy of the model to evaluate the sustainability of landscape land resources is 98.67%. The above results show that the model based on the wavelet neural network can effectively and accurately complete the evaluation of landscape ecology and then provide a decision-making basis for landscape ecological planning, which is of high practicability.

Quantifying the Responses of Evapotranspiration and Its Components to Vegetation Restoration and Climate Change on the Loess Plateau of China

Quantitatively identifying the influences of vegetation restoration (VR) on water resources is crucial to ecological planning. Although vegetation coverage has improved on the Loess Plateau (LP) of China since the implementation of VR policy, the way vegetation dynamics influences regional evapotranspiration (ET) remains controversial. In this study, we first investigate long-term spatiotemporal trends of total ET (TET) components, including ground evaporation (GE) and canopy ET (CET, sum of canopy interception and canopy transpiration) based on the GLEAM-ET dataset. The ET changes are attributed to VR on the LP from 2000 to 2015 and these results are quantitatively evaluated here using the Community Land Model (CLM). Finally, the relative contributions of VR and climate change to ET are identified by combining climate scenarios and VR scenarios. The results show that the positive effect of VR on CET is offset by the negative effect of VR on GE, which results in a weak variation in TET at an annual scale and an increased TET is only shown in summer. Regardless of the representative concentration pathway (RCP4.5 or RCP8.5), differences resulted from the responses of TET to different vegetation conditions ranging from −3.7 to −1.2 mm, while climate change from RCP4.5 to RCP8.5 caused an increase in TET ranging from 0.1 to 65.3 mm. These findings imply that climate change might play a dominant role in ET variability on the LP, and this work emphasizes the importance of comprehensively considering the interactions among climate factors to assess the relative contributions of VR and climate change to ET.