To deeply reach target markets and attract more tourists, a variety of media have been leveraged by tourism destination marketing organizations, particularly video games become a brand-new approach for destination marketing. With Assassin’s Creed: Unity as the research object, based on the Stimulus-Organism-Response (SOR) model, this article analyses and presents the influences of tourism destination factors in video games on the players’ perception of tourism destination image and their intention to visit. In this case, a conceptual model has been built with game factors as the independent variable, tourism destination image as the mediating variable and the players’ intention to visit as the dependent variable. Moreover, Multiple Regression is used in the analysis, proving significantly positive effects of game experience, character attachment, and tourism destination image on players' intention to visit. Consequently this study provides research support for the combination of tourism destination marketing and video games.

Against the backdrop of global climate change, the threat of extreme rainfall and flooding hazards to urban safety is becoming increasingly serious, and there is an urgent need to improve the resilience of cities through the construction of sponge cities. However, improving the sponge city’s capacity for resisting the risk of urban flooding is challenging. The relevant concept of ecosystem-based disaster risk reduction (Eco-DRR) is currently one of the main international theories of urban resilience, and it has important value for enhancing urban stormwater resilience. An approach for improving the stormwater resilience of sponge cities is presented in this paper, using the urban design of Jiangchuanlu Street in Shanghai as an example and the stormwater model to simulate flood disasters on Jiangchuanlu Street. In addition to the simulation results, the population and property conditions of the site were combined in order to conduct a comprehensive risk assessment through the risk matrix. Then, the Eco-DRR measures were implemented to enhance the urban stormwater resilience of Jiangchuanlu Street based on the assessment results. Finally, the ecological infrastructure of the study area was constructed, and the safety and health units were created on the basis of the ecological substrate to prevent and respond to public health emergencies. The results show that the stormwater resilience enhancement approach based on Eco-DRR can effectively alleviate the flood risk of Jiangchuanlu Street. At the same time, the safety and health units created through the ecological infrastructure can also help to prevent and respond to public health emergencies. The results of this study provide a resilience enhancement approach for sponge cities based on Eco-DRR, as well as a theoretical reference for the planning and construction of safe and resilient cities.

Promoting the green development effect characterized by green total factor productivity (GTFP) is the key to achieving high-quality development in the new era. Using the 2001?2021 inter-provincial panel data, the energy and environmental factors were simultaneously included in the analysis framework for assessing the green effect of environmental regulations in China. The Malmquist-Luenberger index based on the SBM directional distance function was used to measure the GTFP and its decomposition terms, the dynamic panel model was further constructed, and the GMM method was used to empirically test the direct and indirect effects of three types of environmental regulation and foreign direct investment (FDI) on GTFP. The results show that China’s GTFP is growing at an average annual rate of 2.13%, green technology progress is the source of GTFP growth, and the GTFP regional gap is expanding. There is not a non-linear effect in command-controlled environmental regulation, while the economic incentive type and the voluntary agreement type of environmental regulation respectively show a “U” shaped relationship and an inverted “U” shaped relationship. The control type regulation does not have an indirect effect on GTFP through FDI, but the incentive type and protocol type regulations can drive the promotion of GTFP indirectly through FDI. The GTFP lifting effects of the different types of environmental regulation and FDI show regional heterogeneity. Exploring the green development effect and characteristics of environmental regulation has important theoretical significance and practical value for selecting rational environmental regulation types, adopting differentiated environmental regulation intensities, implementing two-wheel drive to boost GTFP growth, realizing the benign interactions between environmental regulation and FDI, and ultimately promoting high-quality economic development.

Based on the panel data of 30 provinces in China from 2000 to 2018, the mutual relationships and mechanisms of influence between industrial upgrading, total factor energy efficiency and regional carbon emission were investigated. The results show that the sophistication of industrial structure has a significant inhibitory effect on carbon emissions in all regions. The intensity of inhibition in different regions shows a sequence of “western > central > eastern”. The inhibitory effect of the rationalization of industrial structure on carbon emissions varies greatly among the different regions, with a significant restraining influence in the central and western regions, but much less influence in the eastern region. The inhibition of carbon emissions through the improvement of total factor energy efficiency is significant in all regions, and the inhibition intensity shows the sequence of “western > eastern > central”. Furthermore, the mediating effect test shows that the total factor energy efficiency in different regions has either a partial or complete mediating effect on the influence of industrial upgrading on carbon emission, so it can promote and strengthen the inhibitory effect of industrial upgrading on carbon emissions. Therefore, upgrading the industrial structure and improving the total factor energy efficiency are effective means to promote carbon emission reduction. Reducing carbon emissions by relying solely on industrial upgrading is not ideal, and it needs to be combined with improvements in the total factor energy efficiency to effectively promote carbon emission reduction.

The condition of the tourism environment is the key factor that affects the tourism experience. A comprehensive evaluation of the tourism environmental suitability score is of great significance for guiding tourism planning and decision-making, improving the suitability score of the tourism environment in a targeted manner and guaranteeing the sustainable development of tourist cities. By adopting various indicators, such as the Universal Thermal Climate Index, the amount of precipitation, the vegetation index, the concentration of fine particulate matter in the atmosphere, and the ultraviolet radiation intensity index, this study quantifies the comfort level of weather, the weather impacts, the vegetation status, the atmospheric environment, ultraviolet radiation, and other key factors. Based on employing the AHP-TOPSIS algorithm, this study then conducts a comprehensive evaluation of China’s tourism environmental suitability score and a comprehensive comparative analysis of the tourism environmental suitability scores of three typical tourist areas: the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta. The results show that the tourism environmental suitability score in China has obvious characteristics of spatial differentiation: the scores in East and South China are the highest while the score in the northwest inland area is the lowest. Among the three typical tourist areas, the Pearl River Delta region has the highest tourism environmental suitability score, followed by the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan region has the lowest score. The northern regions of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area, the southern regions of the Yangtze River Delta and the surrounding areas of the Pearl River Delta are more suitable for the sustainable development of the tourism industry. PM_2.5 is the main factor limiting the tourism environmental suitability scores in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan area and the Yangtze River Delta, so atmospheric environment management will be an effective way to improve their tourism environmental suitability scores.

The Huaihe River Basin is one of the typical large river basin economies, promoting its ecological protection and high-quality development is a strategic choice to improve the quality of China’s economic development and narrow the regional development gap, which has far-reaching strategic value for the region and the country in the new era. Based on the theoretical connotation of watershed ecological protection and high-quality economic development, starting from the special characteristics and practical features of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt, the panel data of 28 prefecture-level cities in the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt from 2003-2018 are used as the research samples, the improved entropy method, Dagum Gini coefficient method and panel Tobit model investigate and analyze the time and space of ecological protection and high-quality development in the Huaihe Eco-economic Belt Evolution characteristics and promotion drivers. The results show that the overall ecological protection and high-quality development level of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt is 1.4824, showing an overall upward trend, with obvious periodic fluctuations; the high-value areas are mainly located in the lower and middle reaches of the basin, with the spatial agglomeration characteristic of “double core leading”, while the upper reaches are always in the stage of “low level and stable growth trap”; the hypervariable density is the main cause of the regional disparity; per capita output, opening to the outside world, human capital and government intervention drive the improvement of ecological protection and high-quality development. There are significant differences in the driving factors of ecological protection and high-quality development in the upper, middle and lower reaches of the city. The study of the development status of the Huaihe River Eco-economic Belt and its evolution law are of great theoretical significance, practical value for analyzing the synergistic enhancement path of urban ecological protection and high-quality development, promoting the ecological protection and high-quality economic development of the entire Huaihe River Basin.

The high-quality development of culture and tourism is an important path for promoting the implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, urban-rural integration and development, and realizing common prosperity. This special issue focuses on the major issue of “rural revitalization and high-quality development of culture and tourism”, and contains 22 academic papers with in-depth discussions on five themes: “Rural revitalization and rural tourism high-quality development”, “rural tourism destination and homestay development”, “tourism environmental behavior and farmers’ participation in tourism”, “tourism resilience and tourism risk”, “cultural tourism and tourism high-quality development”. This collection of articles has three characteristics: Rich research areas and diverse research objects; diverse research methods that are inventive, logical, and scientific; and diverse theoretical viewpoints that span several disciplines. Considering the shortcomings of the current research, it puts forward future research directions such as strengthening localized theoretical research, expanding research areas and perspectives, and further deepening and enriching the research contents. In addition to supporting China’s efforts to promote high-quality culture and tourism, as well as comprehensive rural revitalization, this special issue can offer theoretical directions and actual experience in these areas.

Satellite remote sensing provides the changes information of Earth surface on large spatial scale in a long time series and has been widely used in ecology. However, the possible impact from human activities generally occurs on a smaller spatial scale and could be detected in a longer time, which requires the remote sensing data having the both higher spatial and temporal resolution. Meanwhile, the development of the spatiotemporal data fusion algorithm provides an opportunity for the requirements. In this paper, based on deep learning, we proposed a residual convolutional neural network (Res-CNN) model to improve the fusion result considerably with brand-new network architecture to fuse the NDVI retrievals from Landsat 8 and MODIS images. Experiments conducted in two different areas demonstrate improvements by comparing them with existing algorithms. The model performance was evaluated by a linear regression between predictions and observations and quantified by determination coefficients (R²), regressive ecoefficiency (slope). The two excellent models, ESTARFM and FSDAF, were compared with the new model on their performance. The results showed that the predicted NDVI had the higher exploitational on the variability in the Landsat-based NDVI with the R² of 0.768 and 0.807 at the urban and grassland sites. The predicted NDVI was well consistent with the observations with the slope of 1.01 and 0.989, and the R-RMSE of 95.76% and 93.58% at the urban and grassland sites respectively. This study demonstrated that the Res-CNN model developed in this paper exhibits higher accuracy and stronger robustness than the traditional models. This research is full implications because it not only provides a model on the spatio-temporal data fusion, but also can provide the data of a long time series for the management and utilization of agriculture and grassland ecosystems on the regional scale.

Digital cultural tourism is an important part of the digital economy and digital China. The development of rural digital cultural tourism is an important engine for implementing the strategy of rural revitalization and leading the high-quality development of China’s rural tourism in the new era, which helps to promote the coupling and coordinated development of the high-quality development of rural tourism and common prosperity. This study examines the opportunities and challenges in using digital cultural tourism to promote rural revitalization, discusses the mechanism and model for enabling the common prosperity of the rural digital cultural tourism industry to achieve digital cultural tourism in the promotion of rural revitalization, and finally proposes a development path. The findings indicate that: (1) Digital cultural tourism has emerged as a significant force behind the growth of the rural tourism sector, and is a key route for achieving the objective of rural revitalization. (2) Digital cultural tourism and rural revitalization have mutually beneficial relationships; digital cultural tourism enables rural revitalization, and rural revitalization unlocks digital cultural tourism’s development potential, resulting in a positive interaction mechanism. (3) Four models of digital cultural tourism promoting rural revitalization are proposed, considering the rural classification scheme and related research. They are the digital cultural tourism for urban-rural integration and revitalization model, the digital cultural tourism for characteristic village revitalization model, the digital cultural tourism for agriculture, culture and tourism integration and revitalization model, and the digital cultural tourism for arts revitalization model. (4) To thoroughly promote the development of the rural digital cultural tourist sector, it should adhere to the product as the core, digital technology as the foundation, talent revitalization as the leader, and policy as the guarantee. The findings of this study enrich the research findings in digital cultural tourism and rural revitalization, which can serve as theoretical references and a practical foundation for the development of digital cultural tourism to empower rural revitalization.

The present study aimed to assess if the people are satisfied with the relief fund scheme in the three different user committees belonging to 10 Buffer Zone User Group (BZUG) of Shivapuri-Nagarjun National Park (SNNP) in the situation with the higher incidents of conflict on those areas. Differences in local people’s attitudes and the effect of socio-economic factors like age, education, economic status, the quantity of crop damage, and their influence on the satisfaction level of people towards the prevailing relief scheme were mainly captured using a semi-structured questionnaire survey of the households. A total of 162 households (HHs), comprising 40.5% of the total 377 households, were surveyed using a purposive sampling method. People’s attitude towards relief schemes was measured at three levels (positive, negative, or neutral) while the Chi-square test at 5% level of significance was used to determine whether people’s attitudes and relief schemes were dependent or not. Similarly, Chi-square test was used to determine the dependency of different socioeconomic factors and people’s attitudes towards the relief scheme. The results showed that the majority of respondents i.e. 56% were not satisfied (negative attitude) with the relief scheme, 26% were neutral and only 18% of respondents were positive towards the relief fund (satisfied). A mere 41.93 USD was provided as relief against the crop loss of 101 USD at an average in the study area. Similarly, 73 USD was the relief amount for livestock loss (goat) of 124 USD per case. Owing to inadequate and delayed payment, the relief fund scheme was unable to bring a satisfactory change in the attitudes of people. Thus, the regular amendments of relief guidelines to address insufficient and delayed payment are recommended. Additionally, further studies on the wildlife damage relief schemes and its cost-effectiveness and appropriate measures to manage the drawback of this scheme are required.

This study mainly examines the factors influencing mountain outdoor tourism development in light of the regional economy, human environment, infrastructure, talent services, and other aspects. It analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of mountain outdoor tourism development in the process of regional development by combining qualitative research with quantitative research, and puts forward corresponding sustainable development measures in combination with an actual investigation. These measures can provide certain guidance and practical information for the ultimate realization of mountain outdoor tourism in harmony with the residents, which is a win-win situation. Taking Siguniang Mountain as the research area, we adopted the methods of literature review, questionnaire survey and field interview, and used SPSS26 and Smartpls to construct a structural variance model for the related dimensional impact analysis. The results show that the attractants of a mountain outdoor tourism destination and the humanistic environment of the destination have a highly significant relationship with tourist satisfaction. Mountain outdoor tourism destination services and facilities have a low degree of significant relationships with tourist satisfaction. Among them, the path coefficient of outdoor tourism destination consumption in mountainous areas is close to 0, and the significance level is greater than 0.05, so the relationship between destination consumption and tourist satisfaction has not been affected. The correlation analysis of Smartpls showed that the tourist satisfaction of mountain outdoor tourism destinations in Siguniang Mountain is mainly affected by the cultural environment, tourism attractions and tourism facilities of the mountain outdoor tourism destinations. The analysis of the final results of the structural equation model indicated that the cultural environment and tourist attractions of the tourist destination have high positive significant relationships with the satisfaction of tourists, while the significance of the relationship between the facilities of the tourist destination and the satisfaction of tourists is weak, and the positive relationship between the service factors of the tourist destination and the satisfaction of tourists is also weak. Therefore, the functional relationship is “two strong, one weak and one weak”. Finally, suggestions are put forward for optimizing and improving tourist satisfaction from the aspects of human environment, infrastructure, talent services, and the comprehensive development of tourist destinations, which have a certain reference value for improving tourist satisfaction and the sustainable development of tourist destinations.

Wetlands are one of the most complex ecosystem types on the planet, and ecological sensitivity assessment is an important foundation for the scientific planning of wetland park systems. The Minjiang River estuary, located in the coastal city of Fuzhou, has outstanding regional characteristics in terms of its ecosystem and biodiversity. The nearby waters are among the richest in marine species in the world and the richest in offshore marine species at that latitude in the northern hemisphere. It has at least four indicators meeting the criteria for internationally important wetlands. In this study, the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) was used to determine the weights of factors, and the comprehensive ecological sensitivity of Minjiang Estuary National Wetland Park was evaluated using the weighted-overlap method by the Remote Sensing (RS) and Geographic Information System (GIS). An ecological sensitivity evaluation index system for wetland parks was constructed using Delphi, and then an ecological sensitivity assessment of Minjiang Estuary National Wetland Park was built. The sensitivities of different areas in the Minjiang Estuary National Wetland Park were divided five ecological sensitivity levels: extremely sensitive, highly sensitive, moderately sensitive, minimally sensitive, and insensitive. The results show that the riverbanks, beaches, canals, ponds, and surrounding areas were in the range of highly and moderately sensitive areas, while insensitive and minimally sensitive areas were distributed in the artificial landscape environments such as woodlands, farmland, and parks.

This study aims to survey the literature and factual evidence on the nexus between deforestation and agriculture through an assessment of the potential impacts of climate change in the context of the world, India, and the Western Ghats. The Western Ghats region was chosen for this study because of its deep ecological significance. A few underlying themes were created and findings were documented under each theme that ranged from the causes of deforestation, the transformation of forest land for agriculture, the nexus between agriculture, deforestation and climate change, climate-driven agricultural vulnerability and the reconciliation of forest protection with agriculture. These findings suggest that shifting agriculture has been a dominant source of deforestation. The primary climatic impacts on agriculture are seen through crop yield falls. India’s arid and semiarid tropical regions have witnessed high climate-driven agricultural sensitivity. This could be on account of the fact that India’s tropical forests have witnessed high deforestation. The presence of higher tree densities in areas under Joint Forest Planning and Management in the Western Ghats create the potential for sparing remaining land areas for non-forest uses such as agriculture.

With the progressive aging of China’s population, the contradiction between the supply and demand of elderly care service facilities is increasingly prominent. This study takes Wuxi City as the research area, and evaluates the accessibility characteristics of the elderly service facilities in Wuxi City by using geographic statistics, buffer analysis, Gaussian two-step mobile search and other methods. It then analyzes the spatial distribution and supply and demand of the elderly service facilities in Wuxi City, and introduces the XGBoost algorithm to calculate the factors influencing the distributions of different types of elderly services. The results show that the distribution of home-based and institutional endowment resources in Wuxi is spatially heterogeneous, but there are problems of mismatch between supply and demand and uncoordinated regional development. The accessibility of endowment services varies greatly in different regions, and the number of hierarchical endowment institutions is relatively small. The distribution of community home care service stations is relatively more equitable, but still does not match the size of the elderly population. There are obvious differences in the factors affecting the distributions of nursing institutions and community home nursing service stations. The distribution of nursing institutions is affected by transportation infrastructure, the size of the elderly population, the number of medical resources, the environment, economic level and other factors; while community home care is mainly affected by the size of the elderly population. In order to better meet the elderly service needs of residents, Wuxi needs to increase its investment in elderly service facilities and take various measures to promote the development and improvement of its elderly service facilities.

The construction and operation of onshore wind farms interfere with the succession of local plant communities, and the impacts on the local ecology and climate are of great concern. The study of the relationships between onshore wind farms and local ecology and climate, as well as the accurate assessment of the impacts of onshore wind farms on local areas, are the foundation for promoting the sustainable development of green energy. In this study, we summarize the existing research methods used for field data monitoring, remote sensing data inversion and numerical model simulation, and found that onshore wind farms have obvious impacts on the local vegetation index, near-surface temperature, wind speed, soil moisture, and other parameters. Onshore wind farms reduce the local soil moisture content, increase the near-surface air temperature, and significantly alter local wind speeds. They also cause a reduction in the local vegetation index, inhibition of plant growth, and an increase in the mortality rates of birds and bats inside the wind farms. However, onshore wind farms have positive effects on the plant communities outside the wind farms, especially in the downwind direction. Overall, there is regional variability in the results and the findings are not generalizable. The mechanisms by which the onshore wind farms influence the local climate, the impact of climate on local ecology, and the direct effects of onshore wind farms on local ecology have not been clearly and accurately explained. Related research is still needed to further improve the precision, accuracy, and continuity of observational data. The construction of modeling systems also needs to incorporate indicators such as land use type, local microclimatic indicators, and plant species. Based on these considerations, this review provides support for macroscopically understanding the impacts of onshore wind farms on climate and ecology.

Water conservation is a crucial functional aspect of ecosystem service. Revealing the temporal and spatial changes in water conservation and exploring the factors influencing those changes are of great significance for the utilization of water resources and the construction of ecological civilization. In this study, we estimated the water conservation changes in Jiangxi over the 20 years from 2000 to 2020 by the rainfall storage method. Thereafter, the GeoDetector was applied to analyze the contributions from various factors, including climatic variations and ecosystem transformations, to the changes in the water conservation. The results showed three important trends. (1) From 2000 to 2020, farmland, grassland, water and wetland dominated the northern part of the Poyang Lake Basin except for the forests. The transformations of ecosystem types in the study area mainly occurred between forests, farmland and towns in the 20 years. During this period, the urban area showed a significant increase of 92.63%, while the other ecosystem types showed decreasing trends. (2) The province’s water conservation function declined from 2000 to 2020, with a total loss of 97.11×10⁴ m³ km^-2, and in the study area it is characterized as high in the east and west and low in the middle. (3) Factorial analysis showed that the changes in the water conservation were not caused by any one factor alone. The q values of ecosystem type change interactions with the changes in annual precipitation, annual temperature and sunshine hours calculated by the GeoDetector were 0.555, 0.541 and 0.501, respectively. Therefore, the interactions between factors contributed 50% more than the single factors in affecting the changes of water conservation.

The investigation of carbon storage in ecosystems and its driving factors is crucial for understanding carbon cycling and achieving the goal of carbon neutrality. The grassland in the Northern Tibetan Plateau is an important grassland ecosystem in China, although the accurate estimation of its carbon stock and our knowledge of its spatial patterns and driving factors in the Northern Tibetan Plateau remain unclear due to insufficient field investigations. In this study, a dataset of 150 measured sample points on the Northern Tibetan Plateau, kriging interpolation and statistical methods were used to estimate the densities of aboveground biomass carbon, belowground root carbon and soil organic carbon at a soil depth of 30 cm, as well as to explore the spatial distribution and the main influencing factors of each carbon pool. The average carbon densities were 0.038 kg C m^-2 in aboveground biomass, 0.284 kg C m^-2 in belowground biomass, and 7.445 kg C m^-2 in the soil. The soil organic carbon accounted for 95.85% of the grassland carbon density. The total carbon storage of the grassland ecosystem in the Northern Tibetan Plateau was about 4.08 Pg C, with a decreasing trend from southeast to northwest. Of the total, the organic carbon stocks of vegetation and soil were 0.58 Pg C (including the aboveground and belowground biomass) and 2.58 Pg C, accounting for 28.29% of the total vegetation carbon and 26.60% of the total soil carbon, respectively, on the Tibetan Plateau, with the remainder stored in the bare land. While the precipitation, temperature and soil texture all affected the ecosystem carbon storage, precipitation played the most significant role and the combination of these three factors explained up to 86.47% of the aboveground carbon density. The aboveground carbon pools in grassland ecosystems of the Northern Tibetan Plateau were most sensitive to climatic factors, while the spatial patterns of belowground and soil carbon storage were more complex. This study provides a spatially accurate assessment of the carbon storage in the grasslands on the Northern Tibetan Plateau.

Tagetes minuta L. is native to the temperate grasslands and relatively high-altitude areas of South America. In 1990, it was first discovered in the Beijing Botanical Garden in China. In 1994, Pema Dawa introduced the species as a Tibetan medicine from the mountains of northern India to his courtyard in Gangjiang Village, Wolong Town, Milin County. Around 2010, scholars discovered that Tagetes minuta L. was widely invasive, which aroused extensive social concern. Featuring small weight, large number, and awns, Tagetes minuta L., is easy to spread and has a high seed germination rate, with 20% of the reproductive investment. The plant is tolerant of barrenness and drought and adapts to climates with large diurnal temperature differences and strong light conditions. Rich in aromatic substances and essential oils, the leaves and flowers serve medicinal, food, flavoring, health care and cosmetic purposes. Thiophene in the roots and bioactive components in the essential oil have anti-inflammatory, sterilizing, insect-repellent, and fly control effects, with significant allelopathy on native species. The biological and ecological characteristics of Tagetes minuta L. lay the material basis for its population spread. According to Tibetan folklore, we suggest using physical methods or biological control techniques for ecological control and strengthening the research of development and application to guide its economic benefits in Tibetan Buddhist supplies.

Dramatic increases in global atmospheric N deposition have had adverse effects on inland water ecosystems. China is one of the three hot spots of N deposition in the world. In order to fully understand the impact of N deposition on inland waters in China and formulate a reasonable water pollution treatment plan, we need to clearly quantify the N deposition flux in inland water. Therefore, using the LMDZ-OR-INCA model combined with inland water area data, we obtained the dataset of inland water N deposition in China from the 1990s to the 2010s, which lays a foundation for further understanding the spatial-temporal pattern of inland water N deposition and its impact mechanisms. At the same time, we publicly share this dataset and provide online access and download services at https://ecodb.scidb.cn/detail?dataSetId=892431070195089408.

Medicinal and aromatic plants (MAPs) have been grown and used extensively for health care and healing practices since time immemorial in Nepal. They possess cultural, religious and economic values in Nepalese communities. In recent years, the MAPs sector is a growing commercial sector in Nepal that provides livelihood opportunities for low income generating people especially in the Himalayas. In this regard, this study assesses the contribution of MAPs to the gross domestic product (GDP) of Karnali Province of Nepal. A total of 58 species of MAPs were identified in Karnali Province. It was found that various parts of these annuals, biennials and perennial plants have been used as medicines, perfumes and food. MAPs in Karnali Province generated economic output equivalent to NPR 160738 million (USD 1.39 billion) or 1.03% of GDP of Karnali Province and 0.02% of the National GDP in the fiscal year 2019/2020. However, the findings revealed that the current GDP estimate undervalues the contribution of the MAPs sector to the national GDP due to the non-inclusion of ethnobotanical uses of medicinal plants. Moreover, if all cash and environmental benefits people derive from this sector could be valued and recorded in the System of National Accounts, the GDP from MAPs would be much higher than the amount estimated in this study. We conclude that MAPs have a reasonable contribution to the GDP of Karnali Province and Nepal.

Tourism is an essential pillar to promote economic development. Under the context of “dual carbon” goal, which means the Chinese government delivery that China will reach peak CO₂ emissions by 2030 and achieve carbon neutrality by 2060, the measurement of tourism carbon emissions facilitate preparation for carbon reduction work, and premise the development of sustainable tourism. In this study, based on existing studies, meta-analysis was used to extract relevant data of all studies on carbon emissions of domestic scenic spots before 2022, and visualized methods and SPSS correlation analysis were used to analyze the relationship between per capita carbon emissions of tourists of scenic spots and other variables of scenic spots. The results show that: (1) With the year 2010 as the node, the number of study areas and the per capita carbon emissions of tourists in the scenic spot show an increasing trend over time. Before 2010, the average per capita carbon emissions in the scenic spot was 23.47 kg person^-1, and after 2010, it increased to 55.29 kg person^-1; (2) Within different types of scenic spots, the per capita carbon emissions of tourists were ranked as follows: natural category > mixed category > humanistic category. The per capita carbon emission of natural scenic spots is the largest, which is 66.13 kg person^-1; (3) By analyzing the factors affecting per capita carbon emissions, it is found that there is a significant positive correlation between per capita carbon emissions of tourists and the area of the scenic spots, whereby the larger the area of the scenic spots, the larger the per capita carbon emissions; (4) An increase in the number of days of tourist routes leads to a rise in per capita carbon emissions, and in this part of the research, the influence of the source of tourists, the type of hotels and the mode of transportation on per capita carbon emissions was studied.

Integrating the landscape pattern holistically and identifying priority areas for ecological restoration scientifically are the key challenges of national land space planning and ecological protection. Taking Xiushui County, a fragile ecological region in the south, as an example, this study established an evaluation index system based on the pattern-process principle, including the importance of ecosystem services and ecosystem sensitivity, and explored regional priority areas for ecological restoration through GIS spatial analysis technology. The results show that the ecological restoration priority area in the case study area is 2880.64 km² in total, covering 63.93% of the overall area. Of that amount, 367.55 km² is the bottom-line priority areas for ecological restoration, accounting for 8.16%. Regarding land use types within the major ecological restoration priority area, the arable land and construction land areas are 210.83 km² and 122.52 km², covering 55.35% and 51.43% of the overall area, respectively. Determining the priority areas at different levels can help decision-makers to prioritize the restoration needs of degraded areas and provide a basis for adopting targeted ecological restoration measures for areas with different degrees of degradation. Identifying priority areas also provides basic information for the protection and construction of the eco-security pattern of the territorial space, which is vital for improving the regional ecological environmental safety and building a harmonious community between humans and nature.

Understanding the diet composition and preferences of large herbivores not only provides insights into their ecological role, but also helps to assess the viability of elephant populations and their habitats. This study was performed to determine the diet preferences of a small population of Asian elephants in Nangunhe National Nature Reserve in Yunnan, China, during the annual dry season. The next-generation sequencing of the rbcL gene from non-invasively collected fecal samples was conducted in addition to transect surveys and camera-trapping along known elephant trails. With the transect survey, we identified 31 plant species foraged by elephants. The next-generation sequencing analysis identified a total of 90 plant species from the elephant dung samples. Only nine species were detected at rates greater than 1% in all the samples. Poaceae (47.69%), Moraceae (21.25%), and Musaceae (11.24%) were detected to have the highest rates at the family level. We also examined whether differences existed between sexes, age groups, and individuals; however, significant differences were found only between individuals. This study provides useful insights into the foraging preferences of Asian elephants, which could help in further understanding the interactions between elephants and their habitat in the reserve and inform future management decisions in related areas. The detected core plant species with relatively high abundance could provide guidance for habitat restoration and cultivation of food bases. The local plantations where the elephants prefer to feed could be moved farther away, making them inaccessible to the elephants.

The efficient use of urban land is one of the key factors for high-quality urban development, especially in large cities that lack land resources. By constructing an analysis framework of the land use benefit system and the transfer matrix of land use type, this study identified the evolutionary law governing the land use benefit system and its dynamic coupling coordination relationship with the rapidly expanding city by taking Zhengzhou, a national central city in China, as a case study. The results show that the urban land use (ULU) benefit system of Zhengzhou gradually shifted from the eco-environmental benefit type (1998-2005) to the socio-economic benefit type (2006-2019), with the coupling degree presenting a typical inverted U-shaped evolutionary process. In the same period, the urban area of Zhengzhou expanded by about 461 square kilometers. A further transfer matrix analysis shows that the main source of expansion has been the conversion of arable land, grassland, woodland and water areas to construction land. Therefore, the local government should implement a differentiated land use strategy according to the characteristics of the land use benefit system and the evolution of the coupling and coordination relationship, exploit the opportunity of urban boundary delimitation, and promote urban transformation and upgrading as well as eco-city construction.

This article examines the valuation and payment of ecosystem services for livelihood sustainability in the Indian Central Himalayan Region (ICHR). Data were gathered from both primary and secondary sources on biodiversity resources-tangible (goods) and intangible (services) as the Himalaya is a repository of these resources, also called ecosystem services. The ecosystem services are interlinked with the highlands (providers) and the lowlands (beneficiaries) and providing livelihoods to the large populations. Forests cover about 63% of the total geographical area with rich biodiversity. Water resources are abundant as about 42% of the national water need is met by the Ganga River and its tributaries that originate and flow through the region. The hydroelectricity generating capacity is about 30000 MW. The environmental sustainability index is high due to the clean and pollution-free environment. Agro-biodiversity is substantially high and therefore, several crop races/cultivars grow here, although, arable land is only 18%. However, the people of the highlands are unable to use these biodiversity resources optimally because of the rugged terrain, remoteness, and adverse situation. As a result, the people of the highlands are poor, facing acute malnutrition and food scarcity problems. Valuation of both tangible and intangible ecosystem services can be done and payment can be made. Taxes can be levied on the intangible resources mainly used by the downstream people and green bonuses can be paid to the upstream people.

After the computer and mobile revolution, electric and electronic waste had become a serious threat to urban and rural communities equally. Prevention of the hazardous exposure and proper management are challenging in developing nations. One way to turn the crisis to opportunity is to extract metals from this Waste Electronic and Electric Equipment (WEEE) is making waste into a source of metal ores. The involvement of microbes in this technology could increase the boons by being an eco-friendly technique for reducing the hazardous nature. This article reviews the mechanisms involved in the process of bioleaching, the microorganisms employed, methods used and various developments as well as limitations along with recent advances and future prospects of the process of bioleaching of metals from WEEE.

Revealing the mechanism by which land use influences ecosystem service function in karst urban watersheds is of great significance for social and economic development and ecological environmental protection. In this study, the Nanming River Basin, a typical karst basin in Guizhou Province, was used as an example. The spatiotemporal dynamic changes in land use in the basin during three periods from 2000 to 2020 were analyzed using ArcGIS, and the ecosystem service functions of the different land use types in the basin were evaluated using an integrated valuation of ecosystem services and tradeoffs (InVEST) model. This analysis led to three outcomes. (1) Forest, cultivated land, and grassland make up most of the land uses. The land use change was mostly dependent on the growth of construction land, which expanded by 13.07%. (2) The watershed's water conservation function was significantly boosted during the study period. In contrast, the carbon stock function became slightly impaired, and the physical quality of both was regionally distributed as high in the northeast and low in the southwest. (3) The contributions of forest to total water conservation and carbon stock of the watershed are always the greatest, exceeding 57%, and the conversions of forest to construction land and cultivated land to forest are the two primary types of land use change in which the ecosystem service function was impaired and strengthened, respectively. The results of this study can provide important data support and scientific reference for land use structure optimization, soil and water resource exploitation, and sustainable ecosystem management in ecologically fragile areas.

Due to poor penetrability, optical remote sensing can not identify understory vegetation beneath the canopy. Thus, the vegetation coverage extracted by optical remote sensing alone could not sufficiently capture understory vegetation information to formulate the vegetation coverage factor for soil erosion evaluation. To address this issue, the authors took the Baiyangdian-Daqing River Basin as the research object and considered the photon counting ICESat-2/ATLAS vegetation coverage sampling under different photon point classifications. Based on the measured data, satellite-ground collaborative vegetation coverage sampling was achieved in the study area. The results showed that compared with the inversion results extracted by the traditional NDVI pixel dichotomy, the vegetation coverage estimated by the random forest regression model constructed in this study was more accurate. To a certain extent, the proposed model can monitor the understory vegetation of dense forests and complement the lack of understory vegetation signal in optical remote sensing. In the three error tolerance 0.05, 0.1, and 0.15 ranges, the inversion accuracy of vegetation coverage was increased by -4.1%, 5.3%, and 9.4%, reaching the accuracy of 55.6%, 71.1%, and 94.3%, respectively.

The green production of food currently faces the challenge of technological shortage. As agricultural technology services are an important source of technical knowledge for farmers, it is of great significance to explore how agricultural technology services influence the efficiency of green food production in order to improve its productivity. This study utilized data from the China Land and Economy Survey (CLES). Firstly, the three-stage DEA model was used to calculate the efficiency of green food production. Secondly, the generalized random forest model was used to empirically test the impact, heterogeneity, and pathways of agricultural technology services on the efficiency of green food production. This study found that: (1) Agricultural technology services have a significant positive impact on the efficiency of green food production. Among the stages, pre-production and mid-production agricultural technology services significantly improve the efficiency of green food production. However, post-production agricultural technology services do not show a significant impact. Additionally, the combination of agricultural technology services has a significant improvement effect on the efficiency of green food production. (2) The marginal effects of resource allocation by farmers have heterogeneity in terms of the impact on the efficiency of agricultural technology services in improving green food production. An increase in the proportion of the family agricultural labor force and the expansion of family-operated arable land scale significantly reduce the returns of agricultural technology services. (3) An analysis of mechanism variables showed that agricultural technology services mainly affect the efficiency of green food production through pesticide and fertilizer usage behavior, and significantly contribute to its improvement. The government should expand the scope of agricultural technology services and fully utilize their potential to improve the efficiency of green food production. Tailored strategies and policies should be implemented to guide the concept of green production during the provision of agricultural technology services, thereby promoting sustainable agricultural practices among farmers.