Altay region is located in the northern part of Xinjiang, and has complex and diverse internal geomorphic types, undulating terrain and a fragile ecosystem. Studying the impact of land use changes on habitat quality is of great significance to regional ecological protection and development, rational planning and utilization, and ensuring the sustainable development of the ecological environment. Based on the InVEST model, combined with land use panel data and topographic relief data of the Altay region, this paper studied the habitat quality from 1995 to 2018. The results show that cultivated land, water area and construction land increased gradually from 1995 to 2018, while grassland and unused land decreased. Forestland remained stable in the first five periods, but increased significantly in 2018. During 1995–2018, all land use types were transferred, mainly between cultivated land, forestland, grassland and unused land in the flat and slightly undulating areas. Poor habitat quality was dominant during 1995-2018. Habitat quality decreased significantly in 2015, which was related to the rapid expansion of cultivated and construction land as threat sources, as well as the decrease of forest and grassland as sensitive factors. However, habitat quality improved significantly in 2018, because a large amount of cultivated land and unused land were converted into forest land and grassland with high habitat suitability. Land use type has an important influence on habitat quality. The distribution characteristics of habitat quality for topographic relief types from good to bad were: large undulating area>medium undulating area>small undulating area>flat area>slightly undulating area. The findings of this study are of great significance for coordinating social, economic, and ecological development in this region and in similar areas.

Quantitative evaluation and driving mechanism analysis of vegetation dynamics are essential for promoting regional sustainable development. In the past 20 years, the ecological environment in Altay Prefecture has changed significantly due to global warming. Meanwhile, with increasing human activities, the spatiotemporal pattern and driving forces of vegetation variation in the area are uncertain and difficult to accurately assess. Hence, we quantified the vegetation growth by using the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) on the Google Earth Engine (GEE). Then, the spatiotemporal patterns of vegetation from 2000 to 2019 were analyzed at the pixel scale. Finally, significance threshold segmentation was performed using meteorological data based on the correlation analysis results, and the contributions of climate change and human activities to vegetation variation were quantified. The results demonstrated that the vegetation coverage in Altay Prefecture is mainly concentrated in the north. The vegetation areas representing significant restoration and degradation from 2000 to 2019 accounted for 24.08% and 1.24% of Altay Prefecture, respectively. Moreover, spatial correlation analysis showed that the areas with significant correlations between NDVI and temperature, precipitation and sunlight hours accounted for 3.3%, 6.9% and 20.3% of Altay Prefecture, respectively. In the significant restoration area, 18.94% was dominated by multiple factors, while 3.4% was dominated by human activities, and 1.74% was dominated by climate change. Within the significant degradation area, abnormal degradation and climate change controlled 1.07% and 0.17%, respectively. This study revealed the dynamic changes of vegetation and their driving mechanisms in Altay Prefecture, and can provide scientific support for further research on life community mechanism theory and key remediation technology of mountain-water-forest-farmland-lake-grass in Altay Prefecture.

Grassland degradation in Altay Prefecture is of considerable concern as it is a threat that hinders the sustainable development of the local economy and the stable operation of the livestock industry. Quantitative assessment of the relative contributions of climate change and human activities, which are considered as the dominant triggers of grassland degradation, to grassland variation is crucial for understanding the grassland degradation mechanism and mitigating the degraded grassland in Altay Prefecture. In this paper, the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach model and the Thornthwaite memorial model were adopted to simulate the actual net primary productivity (NPP_A) and potential net primary productivity (NPP_P) in the Altay Prefecture from 2000 to 2019. Meanwhile, the difference between potential NPP and actual NPP was employed to reflect the effects of human activities (NPP_H) on the grassland. On this basis, we validated the viability of the simulated NPP using the Pearson correlation coefficient, investigated the spatiotemporal variability of grassland productivity, and established comprehensive scenarios to quantitatively assess the relative roles of climate change and human activities on grassland in Altay prefecture. The results indicate three main points. (1) The simulated NPP_A was highly consistent with the MOD17A3 dataset in spatial distribution. (2) Regions with an increased NPP_A accounted for 70.53% of the total grassland, whereas 29.47% of the total grassland area experienced a decrease. At the temporal scale, the NPP_A presented a slightly increasing trend (0.83 g C m^–2 yr^–1) over the study period, while the trends of NPP_P and NPP_H were reduced (–1.31 and –2.15 g C m^–2 yr^–1). (3) Compared with climate change, human activities played a key role in the process of grassland restoration, as 66.98% of restored grassland resulted from it. In contrast, inter-annual climate change is the primary cause of grassland degradation, as it influenced 55.70% of degraded grassland. These results could shed light on the mechanisms of grassland variation caused by climate change and human activities, and they can be applied to further develop efficient measures to combat desertification in Altay Prefecture.

As a material carrier contributing to human survival and social sustainable development, the ecological environment is declining in its integrity and overall health. With the rapid development of society and economy, it is currently very necessary to carry out ecological security evaluation research to provide scientific guidance and suggestions for the construction of ecological civilization and the harmonious co-existence between man and nature. Taking Altay region as the research area, this paper collected and integrated regional geological, geographical, cultural, socio-economic, and statistical data, as well as previous research results. Combined with DPSIR and EES framework model, the evaluation index system of land resource ecological security in Altay region was constructed by using the analytic hierarchy process, entropy method and linear weighted summation function method. Using this index system, the evaluation research work was carried out to determine the current state of the security situation and the major threats which should be addressed. (1) The overall ecological security situation of Altay region was relatively safe, while the local ecological security situation was relatively fragile. Among them, the areas with safe and safer ecological environment accounted for 38.72%, while the areas with critically safe status accounted for 30.83%, and the areas with a less safe and unsafe environment accounted for 30.45%. In terms of spatial characteristics, the areas with unsafe ecological environment were mainly distributed in the west and east of the study area, while the areas with good ecological environment were distributed in the north of the study area. (2) Large-scale mining activities, frequent geological disasters, large-scale reclamation and long-term cultivation of arable land, and long-term large-scale grazing activities resulting in the destruction of grassland and vegetation were the main factors leading to the prominent ecological security problems of land resources in the Altay region. Therefore, in the process of the continuous development of the urban economy, we should pay more attention to the harmony between man and nature, and also actively and effectively advocate and implement certain policies and measures, such as returning farmland to forest, returning grazing land to grassland and integrating the mining of mineral resources.

The Irtysh River Basin refers to a water conservation area and a vital ecological barrier in Xinjiang and also partially in Central Asia. Here, the technical solution for the ecological protection and the restoration of the Mountains-Rivers-Forests-Farmlands-Lakes-Grasslands system (MRFFLGs) pilot project in the Irtysh River Basin is refined, by complying with the core concept, i.e., “mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes and grasslands are a community of life”. The solution stresses the specific characteristics of ecologically protecting and restoring MRFFLGs in the Irtysh River Basin, which aim to reduce ecological water use, soil erosion, forest and grassland degradation, the ecological destruction of mines, water environment pollution and other issues. With overall protection, system restoration, district policy, and problem orientation as the overarching ideas, 162 sub-items of 44 major items with seven categories have been designed and implemented in the project. In addition, some highlights of the management experience that are worth promoting when the pilot project is being implemented are also summarized (e.g., the use of laws to solve historical problems, scientific argumentation and third-party evaluation, proactive guidance for the engagement of people, modern information technology support, and integration with local sustainable development). Lastly, four policy suggestions are proposed: (1) Building a model of systematic protection and restoration by using basins as the basic geographic unit; (2) Establishing and optimizing key weak links of systems and mechanisms; (3) Focusing on remedying the shortcomings of regional talents, technology and capital; and (4) Promoting the MRFFLGs project to integrate “industry, city, people, and tourism” for carrying out a large-scale system project.

Altay Prefecture plays a vital role as an ecological barrier in Northwest China. Studying the ecosystem service value is of great significance for promoting regional green high-quality development and maintaining ecological security. Based on Global ESA land cover data from 2000 to 2015, the trade-off and synergy relationships and driving force factors between ecosystem services in Altay Prefecture were analyzed in this study. The analysis produced four main results. (1) The ecosystem service value in Altay Prefecture continued to increase from 113.521 × 10⁹ yuan in 2000 to 115.777 × 10⁹ yuan in 2015, for an increase of about 1.98%. (2) The distribution of ecosystem service value had obvious spatial agglomeration characteristics, with hot spot areas mainly concentrated in the ″two rivers and one lake″ and the mountainous areas in the northwest, while the cold spot areas were mainly the forest and grass-covered areas in the northern mountainous areas and within Jimunai County. (3) The trade-off and synergy relationship among ecosystem services was mainly synergistic, with a total of 77.78% of ecosystem service relative relationships showing a significant positive correlation at the 0.01 level. (4) Economic factors and industrial structure are important factors affecting ecosystem service value in Altay Prefecture. Ecosystem service value is positively correlated with per capita GDP and the output value of the tertiary industry, but negatively correlated with the output value of the secondary industry.

The adoption of both Nature-based Solutions (NbS) and a system perspective is a hot issue and an area in which there is much room for improvement in ecological protection and restoration. The study takes Altay region as an example, an area located in Xinjiang, China, which is an important ecological corridor of the national key functional area and the core area of the Belt and Road but has a fragile ecological environment and needs much enhancement in ecological protection and restoration. Guided by the concept of “mountains-rivers-forests-farmlands-lakes-grasslands (MRFFLG) system is a life community”, the coupling relationship of the various MRFFLG elements, the main ecological environmental problems and the integrated countermeasures for protection and restoration in Altay region have been analyzed in this study. The study shows that Altay region has a typical meta-ecosystem of mountain, oasis, and desert, and the connections by rivers and lakes make the ecosystem links within the region much closer. The interweaving of resource-environmental-ecological issues of the aquatic ecosystem, degradation of the quality of terrestrial ecosystems such as forests, grasslands and farmlands, the increased ecosystem fragmentation and ecological risks are the major ecological environmental issues in this region. This study takes the improvement of the ecosystem health and function in Altay region as the core goal of regional ecological protection and restoration. First, we establish a zoning governance pattern from the perspective of ecosystem integrity; second, we design governance strategies for different zones with the goal of synergistic improvements in the ecosystem functions; and finally, we clarify the key engineering tasks in different zones from the perspective of ecosystem services. Ecological conservation and restoration of the MRFFLG system is a prime example of the application and development of NbS in China. This paper constructs an analytical framework for identifying regional life communities, diagnosing ecological protection and restoration of zoning problems, and proposing classified solutions for ecological protection tasks for the protection of the MRFFLG system. This research will enrich the theory and technology for the protection and restoration of MRFFLG systems, and provide guidance for the practice of ecological protection and restoration in Altay region.

As a complex social ecosystem network, the area along the Grand Canal has a prominent contradiction between the demand for economic development and the protection of natural resources, which means that there is an urgent need for ecological restoration and environmental protection. Using ArcGIS, Conefor, Linkage Mapper and other software platforms, this paper developed an integrated analysis framework, through loose coupling of the attribute-function-structure index system and a series of methods such as the least cost path, circuit theory and moving window search. Based on the framework, we resolve a series of scientific issues in developing regional ecological networks, such as the selection of ecological sources, the simulation of potential ecological corridors, the assessment of the importance of ecological sources and corridors, and the identification of key ecological nodes. Moreover, an overall conservation pattern of the regional ecological network is constructed. The results show that: 1) A total of 88 important ecological sources are identified in the study area. The patches with high centrality values are mainly concentrated in the southern mountainous area and the areas with abundant rivers and lakes. 2) A total of 138 important ecological corridors are identified, and they are not evenly distributed. Extremely important corridors mostly appear between important patches, and very important corridors are mainly distributed in the central area. 3) Fifteen ecological pinch points are extracted, and they are mainly concentrated in the northern part of the study area and eastern Zhejiang Province. The barriers are mostly concentrated in the southern and northern parts of the study area. 4) Combining the demands of ecological protection and socioeconomic development, we propose an overall ecological conservation pattern of “one axis, five sections, multiple cores and multiple nodes” to effectively guide future ecological restoration work. These results can provide a useful reference and spatial guidance for decision makers in terms of ecological restoration and cooperation on cross-regional ecological protection along the Grand Canal.

Quantitative assessment of vulnerability is a core aspect of wetland vulnerability research. Taking Baiyangdian (BYD) wetlands in the North China Plain as a study area and using the ‘cause-result’ model, 23 representative indicators from natural, social, sci-tech and economic elements were selected to construct an indicator system. A weight matrix was obtained by using the entropy weight method to calculate the weight value for each indicator. Based on the membership function in the fuzzy evaluation model, the membership degrees were determined to form a fuzzy relation matrix. Finally, the ecological vulnerability was quantitatively assessed based on the comprehensive evaluation index calculated by using a composite operator to combine the entropy weight matrix with the fuzzy relation matrix. The results showed that the ecological vulnerability levels of the BYD wetlands were comprehensively evaluated as Grade II, Grade III, Grade IV, and Grade III in 2010, 2011–2013, 2014, and 2015–2017, respectively. The ecological vulnerability of the BYD wetlands increased from low fragility in 2010 to general fragility in 2011–2013, and to high fragility in 2014, reflecting the fact that the wetland ecological condition was degenerating from 2010 to 2014. The ecological vulnerability status then turned back into general fragility during 2015–2017, indicating that the ecological situation of the BYD wetlands was starting to improve. However, the ecological status of the BYD wetlands on the whole is relatively less optimistic. The major factors affecting the ecological vulnerability of the BYD wetlands were found to be industrial smoke and dust emission, wetland water area, ammonia nitrogen, total phosphorus, rate of industrial solid wastes disposed, GDP per capita, etc. This illustrates that it is a systematic project to regulate wetland vulnerability and to protect regional ecological security, which may offer researchers and policy-makers specific clues for concrete interventions.

Wetland parks play various ecological roles, including maintaining regional ecological balance, and connoting and compensating water sources. Taking Harbin Qunli National Urban Wetland Park as the research object, the diversity of plant resources in wetland parks is investigated and analyzed with the goal of providing a scientific basis for ecological restoration and the conservation and utilization of urban wetlands. Field survey, sampling and data collection methods were used to study the wetland plant resources and their life types (e.g., vines or shrubs), ecological types and distribution types. The study found 60 families, 129 genera and 160 species of wetland plants in Qunli National Urban Wetland Park, including 56 families, 123 genera and 151 species of angiosperms, which include 48 families, 101 genera and 127 species of dicotyledons and 8 families, 22 genera and 24 species of monocotyledons; 2 families, 2 genera and 3 species of ferns; and 2 families, 4 genera and 6 species of gymnosperms. The family composition is dominated by those families that included 10 or more species, and the dominant families are Compositae and Rosaceae. The genus composition is dominated by genera with four or more species present, and the dominant genera are Acer, Malus and Artemisia. Among the six life types, herbaceous plants are dominant, with a proportion of 62.50% of the species. The ecological types are divided into three categories: wet, mesophytic and aquatic plants, with wet plants accounting for the largest proportion, i.e., 56.25% of the total number of plant species. There are five distribution types of plant families and 10 types of the genera, with both families and genera dominated by the Northern Temperate types, so the flora has obvious temperate characteristics.

In recent decades, the continuous growth in the population has significantly changed the area of human settlements across the globe. The change of human settlements has brought great challenges to human development, environmental change, resource allocation, and disaster prediction and prevention. In the current paper, we integrate data products provided by the European Commission, Joint Research Centre with multi-source remote sensing data to analyze the changing trends of global human settlements under varying geographical distributions from 1990 to 2014. The results demonstrate that on the global scale, human settlements are generally distributed in Europe, East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, the eastern United States, the Gulf Coast and the coast of Oceania, with most of them distributed in urban agglomerations and coastal areas. Global human settlements have continued to grow over the past 25 years, mainly in East Asia, Western Europe and the United States. The area of human settlements in eastern Europe has been slightly reduced. The distribution of human settlements is affected by climate, water and terrain conditions. Humans were more likely to have settled in temperate regions with wetter climates, and most of the human settlements are located within 500 km of the coastline and 30 km of land-based water sources. Our results can provide insights into further investigations of the spatio-temporal dynamics of human settlements and its connections to ecological and environmental issues in a changing world.

Enclosure is commonly used in the restoration of degraded grasslands. However, the effects of enclosure on grassland plant and soil restoration remain controversial, particularly in deserts. To assess the effects of enclosure on desert plants and soil properties, using high throughput sequencing, the differences between plants and soil were systematically analyzed before and after enclosure construction. The soil organic carbon, total nitrogen and total phosphorus contents of the three desert flora increased and decreased, but the difference was not significant; enclosure increased plant height, coverage, aboveground biomass, and species richness by 58.99%, 59.35%, 33.29%, and 51.21%, respectively, in a Seriphidium transiliense formation; by 15.49%, 33.52%, 20.85%, and 5.13%, respectively, in a Haloxylon persicum formation; and by 83.80%, 31.51%, 76.66% and 33.33%, respectively, in an Anabasis salsa formation. For soil bacteria, enclosure significantly increased the average number of operational taxonomic units and Shannon-Wiener index by 12.74% and 2.92%, respectively, under S. transiliense formation and by 17.08% and 3.17%, respectively, under H. persicum formation. However, enclosure had no significant effect on the average number of operational taxonomic units or Shannon-Wiener index under A. salsa formation. Enclosure significantly increased desert plants, soil bacterial diversity, and desert plant community productivity; however, the increase in soil nutrient content was not significant. These results demonstrate that enclosure is effective for restoring desert ecosystems but may have little effect on the soil nutrient content.

Vulnerability research is the core issue and one of the research hotspots of sustainable development science. Vulnerability and its evaluation framework provide a new perspective for rural social-ecosystem studies. This paper introduced the ‘input-output’ efficiency theory and constructed the ‘SEE-PSR’ framework for the analysis of social-ecosystem vulnerability in the rural area in Qingpu District of Shanghai City. The DEA models, spatial autocorrelation model, multivariate logistic regression model, geographical detector and hierarchical cluster model were used to analyze the spatial differences of social-ecosystem vulnerability, and its geographical impact mechanisms and ecological restorations, in 184 administrative villages in this area. The results can be divided into three main points. (1) The results of the ‘input-output’ efficiency model of the EW-DEA based on entropy weight aggregation crossover was more reliable and accurate for the evaluation of rural social-ecosystem vulnerability. The vulnerability of the social-ecosystems in the administrative villages showed a trend of gradual decline from east to west, with an average value of vulnerability of 0.583, and the vulnerability of social systems had become an important factor in constraining the decrease of the vulnerability of the social-ecosystems in the region. (2) The distances from the center of Shanghai City, from Dianshan Lake, from the center of Qingpu District and from the water area were the four dominant geographical factors affecting the vulnerability of the social-ecosystem in this region. The geographical impacts exhibited the spatial differentiations of systemic structure, the substitution of typological attributes and the transformation level. (3) The geographical factors coupling the impact types of the social-ecosystem vulnerability were divided spatially into 10 types. The geographic multi-factor coupling impact types were dominant, which presented multi-cyclic spatial patterns and were dominated by the central multi-factor which was surrounded by the single factor types on both sides. According to the different types, some feasible ways of ecological restoration were proposed, which drew on the experiences of integrated territory consolidation to remediate the vulnerability of rural social-ecological systems. The results of this study can provide scientific reference for rural spatial reconstruction, regional ecological restoration and sustainable development for the regions characterized by conflict in the ‘strict protection of the ecological environment and vigorous development of the economy’.

Poaceae plant species, such as silver grass, are commonly used in mulching activities Japan. In contrast, local farmers have traditionally used Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica) mulch in the cultivation of solanaceous crops in the Nishi-Awa area of Japan, which is a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems site. We have previously evaluated the positive effects of Japanese knotweed mulching on solanaceous crops, such as eggplants, tomato, and potato. In the present study, we observed that the naturally occurring diseases in the solanaceous crops tended to decrease when the knotweed mulching system was adopted, in comparison to when Poaceae mulch was adopted. In eggplants, leaf mold and powdery mildew decreased under Japanese knotweed mulching. We further evaluated the effects of Japanese knotweed mulching by inoculating test plants with Pseudomonas cichorii. We observed suppression of bacterial disease and tomato mosaic virus under Japanese knotweed mulching and following spraying with Japanese knotweed extracts. In addition, disease-resistance genes were expressed at high levels in Arabidopsis thaliana, a model plant, following treatment with Japanese knotweed extracts. The results suggest that Japanese knotweed has potential applications in future sustainable agriculture activities.