Water yield calculation and mapping are of great importance to water resource planning and management and hydropower station construction. A water yield model based on InVEST was employed to estimate water runoff in the Xitiaoxi River basin. The data included land use and land cover, average annual precipitation and potential evapotranspiration, soil depth, and plant available water content. In order to test model accuracy the natural runoff of Xitiaoxi River was estimated based on linear regression relation of rainfall-runoff in a ‘reference period’. After repeated validation, when the Z value was 6.5 the water yield was 8.30 E+8 m³ and this was a smaller difference with natural runoff. From the distribution of water yield, south and southwestern areas of the watershed had higher water yield volumes per hectare.

Agricultural heritage is an important type of world heritage. The special features of this kind of heritage are that they are "living" or "real life" systems, in both the ecosystem and in the cultural sense. So, agricultural heritage needs to be conserved in a special way. In a well-reasoned approach to dynamic conservation of agricultural heritage, careful development of heritage sites can realize greater sustainability of the traditional agriculture by considering both conservation and development though tourism. This paper examines the Global Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) as designated by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) and listed by United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as agricultural heritages sites. Currently, the research in China focuses on tourism resources evaluation and development, production design and marketing, tourism perception and the impacts of tourism development and so forth. There is less emphasis on research about benefit sharing of heritage tourism evolution mechanisms, environmental impacts of agricultural heritage tourism and study methods which should be analyzed in-depth, so as to illuminate the theories and practices of development in a living landscape.

Ecological compensation is an important part of ecological civilization which has gained widespread attention in academia in recent years. This study uses the knowledge graph tool CiteSpace to identify and analyze the literature related to ecological compensation research published in academic journals in the CNKI database, in order to provide an objective and scientific reference for the research in this field. The results show that the domestic research on ecological compensation began to appear around 2000, and the first research boom was ushered in starting in 2009. Most studies have explored ecological compensation from the connotation of ecological compensation, compensation subjects and objects, compensation standards, compensation methods, compensation supervision and evaluation of compensation effects, etc., and the articles on ecological compensation standards are relatively more abundant. At the same time, ecological compensation research is often linked to the realization of ecosystem service value and ecological product value. In the future, researchers should focus on establishing and improving the ecological compensation standard accounting system, exploring the market-based ecological compensation mechanism, attaching importance to the ecological compensation fund distribution mechanism, and strengthening research related to ecological compensation effect assessment. Ecological compensation theory should be developed in the direction of deepening and providing new research perspectives for helping China to deal with the relationship between conservation and development.

Implementing wildlife-friendly farming (WFF) practices is a sound approach to sustain ecological restoration of farmland. The aims of the study were to explore factors affecting farmers' implementation of WFF practices on Sado Island, Japan and to consider the policy implications of disseminating such practices. All 5010 farming households on Sado Island, who are distributing rice to Japan Agricultural Cooperatives (JA), were surveyed. In total, 2231 households responded to the questionnaire (response 44.5%). By comparing the attitudes, beliefs, and attributes of non-certified versus certified farmers, we identified key factors affecting farmers' implementation of WFF practices. Compared with non-certified farmers, certified farmers: (i) showed a greater interest in biodiversity and the financial benefits of WFF; (ii) had a larger number of certified farmer friends; (iii) felt many more pressures and expectations from consumers, in particular; and (iv) were not hampered by bad labor or farmland conditions when implementing WFF practices. To further disseminate WFF practices in Sado, we suggest that the information on the effectiveness of WFF on paddy field biodiversity is used in public education, and opportunities for interchanging opinions are set up between non-certified and certified farmers, as well as between farmers and consumers.

The Chinese yew (Taxus wallichiana), which is widely distributed in the Himalayas and in southern China, is now on the edge of extinction. In order to understand the evolutionary processes that control the current diversity within this species at the genetic and ecological levels, its genetic patterns and range dynamics must first be identified and mapped. This knowledge can then be applied in the development of an effective conservation strategy. Based on molecular data obtained from 48 populations of T. wallichiana, we used GIS-based interpolation approach for the explicit visualization of patterns of genetic divergence and diversity, and a number of potential evolutionary hotspots have been specifically identified within the genetic landscape maps. Within the maps of genetic divergence and diversity, five areas of high inter-population genetic divergence and six areas of high intra-population genetic diversity have been highlighted in a number of separate mountain regions, and these evolutionary hotspots should have the priority to be protected. Furthermore, four geographical barriers have been identified: the eastern Himalayas, the Yunnan Plateau, the Hengduan Mountains and the Taiwan Strait. According to ecological niche modeling (ENM), the populations of T. wallichiana within the Sino-Himalayan Forest floristic subkingdom experienced westward expansion from the periods of Last Inter-glacial to Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Following the LGM, the distribution range overall became reduced and fragmented. These findings challenge the classic mode of contraction-expansion in response to the last glaciation. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the changes in geographical landscapes and climate that occurred during the Quaternary resulted in current genetic landscape patterns.

Food safety is an important issue for the development of the national economy and society. Studying regional food supply and demand from the perspective of land resource carrying capacity can provide new references for regional resource sustainability. This study uses the data from farmer and herdsmen household questionnaires, statistical data, land use data, and other sources to construct a land resource carrying capacity (LCC) assessment framework, targeting the food supply and demand of residents in representative areas, specifically the typical grassland pastoral areas, sandy pastoral areas and agro-pastoral areas on the Xilin Gol grassland transects. The three food nutritional indicators of calories, protein and fat were selected for analyzing the balance of land resource carrying capacity. We found that: 1) Along the Xilin Gol grassland, the main local food supply showed a shift from meat and milk to grains, vegetables and fruits. 2) From north to south along the grassland transects, the calorie intake increased gradually, while the intake of protein and fat was highest in pastoral areas and lowest in agricultural areas. 3) The overall land resource carrying capacity of the Xilin Gol grassland transects was in a surplus state, but the land carrying capacity of typical grassland pastoral area was higher than the two other types of areas. This study provides an empirical reference for the sustainable development of regional food nutrition.

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.

Crop-livestock integration (CLI) is a significant practice for livestock grazing systems in alpine rangelands. It offers the potential to achieve sustainable crop and livestock production. However, the separate crop and livestock systems that exist today have led to issues of intensive agriculture, rangeland degradation and forage shortage in the Tibetan Plateau. Developing crop-livestock integration through sown pastures can be an effective way to lift pasture productivity and improve livestock production. Thus, to explore the potential for integrating crop and livestock production in alpine grazing systems, an assessment of potential forage and livestock production using multiple datasets was carried out in Burang County, China. Results showed the marginal land potentially available for sown pastures was about 560 ha, located mostly in the Burang township of the Karnali basin. Accumulated temperature was the dominant limiting factor for establishing sown pastures, therefore cold tolerance of forage species and growth period should be taken into consideration. Furthermore, the number of livestock decreased during the period 2012–2016; yet often, the number of livestock in rangeland landscape was greater than that in agro-pastoral landscape. The average number of livestock was about 110000 standard sheep units (SU) in the study area, but forage from sown pastures and crop residues could potentially feed about 11000 SU, accounting for 50% of the livestock population in the Karnali basin. We found that integrating crop and forage production could fill feed gaps for grazing systems, particularly in the agro-pastoral landscape of the Karnali basin. The results of this study provide scientific support to guide future forage production and to promote further crop and livestock integration in Burang County.

As a critical index for monitoring the response of terrestrial ecosystems to climate change, net primary productivity (NPP) is widely used to reflect the vegetation productivity under natural conditions. However, little is known about vegetation NPP in Buryatiya Republic, Russia. To fully understand temporal and spatial variations in vegetation NPP and its response to climate change, satellite images of Moderateresolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) products in conjunction with ground-based observations of climatology were used to estimate vegetation NPP in Buryatiya Republic from 2000 to 2008. Observed values of vegetation NPP and MODIS NPP products were jointly utilized to verify simulations of vegetation NPP in this area. The Carnegie Ames Stanford Approach (CASA) model was improved by adjusting its parameters with bio-temperature instead of monthly average temperature in a sub-model of soil water content. Model reliability was tested with observed vegetation NPP. Variation in vegetation NPP, and its relationship with climatic factors, was analyzed in detail. Results showed that the modified CASA model can be used to estimate vegetation NPP in Buryatiya Republic, and that the accuracy of the model was generally high with a correlation coefficient of 0.91 (P<0.01). The vegetation average annual NPP was 542.45 g C m^-2 y^-1 and the total NPP was estimated as 1.91E+14 g C y^-1 from 2000 to 2008. Monthly vegetation NPP increased significantly from April to July, decreased rapidly from August to November, and remained steady from December to March of the next year. Vegetation NPP increased with increasing longitude and decreased with increasing latitude. Different vegetation types differ in total NPP, with the highest NPP in forests, followed by forest-steppe, high mountain vegetation, steppe and meadow-swamp. Temperature and precipitation were the primary factors limiting vegetation NPP in this area.

Three rice landraces that have been continuously cultivated in Yuanyang County for hundreds of years by the local Hani people and three modern varieties cultivated in this area for 3-5 years were comparative tested on seven major agronomic characteristics at six different altitudes in the Yuanyang paddy field.The results indicated that agronomic characteristics of the landrace varieties,such as plant height,panicle length and number of effective panicles of landraces had no significant difference at different altitudes,whereas,those agronomic traits fluctuated in the modern varieties.In the Yuanyang terrace area,the Yuanyang landraces showed greater diversity in phenotype and better adaptation compared to the modern varieties.

Valuation of global ecosystem services by R. Costanza（1997）has attracted attention of the Chinese ecological researchers over the years. Many Chinese scientists have been using the methods to valuate the ecosystem services for forest, grassland and farmland ecosystems. However, it has been turned out that there are several shortcomings in direct adaptation of the methods, for instance, some ecosystem services have been insufficiently valuated or even ignored. To meet this gap, we have used a “unit value” based method for assessment of ecosystem services. Expert interviews with structured questionnaire have been contacted in 2002 and 2007 respectively; altogether 700 Chinese ecologists have been involved in the interviews. It has been found that the values of ecosystem services from expert knowledge based unit value method and biomass based method are comparative. Therefore, expert knowledge based assessment of ecosystem services could be used as a method for the assessment with known land use areas, and a good result could be generated within a short time period. However, for scientifically sound and concrete results, a long term simulation of ecosystem service flux curve via experimental research is required, and spatial and temporal disparity of ecosystem services should be taken into account.

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.

A milestone in the Year of Biodiversity is that the Nagoya Protocol on Access to Genetic Resources and the Fair and Equitable Sharing of Benefits Arising from their Utilization to the Convention on Biological Diversity(CBD)was adopted in the 10th Conference of Parties(COP 10)held in Nagoya,Japan,Oct 18- 29,2010.Traditional knowledge(TK)is a key issue in the Protocol’s text and its negotiating period.This paper aimed to protect TK by defining its concepts and categories and promoting benefit-sharing with TK’s holders.Based on the analysis for the TK concepts of relevant international organizations and conventions, in particularly on the author’s current years’research work on TK in the ethnic areas of China,this paper proposes the categories and the classification system for the TK associated with biological resources,i.e. (i)the knowledge for traditional use of agricultural bio-species and genetic resources;(ii)the knowledge for traditional use of medicinal bio-species；(iii)traditional technical innovations for bio-resource use and traditional practices for farming and living styles;(iv)traditional cultures such as customary laws and community protocols that are related to conservation and sustainable use of bio-resources;and(v) traditional geographically biological indicators.Furthermore,this paper introduced the provisions for access and benefit-sharing of TK and proposed to share fairly and equitably the benefits produced from use of TK with indigenous people,local communities and other kinds of holders such as a country for the ancient documented TK.In addition,aimed to the existing problems for traditional knowledge protection,the national strategy for TK protection was introduced and measures for TK inheritance,development,utilization and protection measures were put forward,which are significant for TK’s popularization and beneficial to local communities of the ethnic groups in China.

Total nitrogen (TN), total phosphorus (TP), total potassium (TK), and soil organic matter (OM) can significantly affect forest growth. However, these soil properties are spatially heterogeneously distributed, complicating the prescription of forest management strategies. Thus, it is imperative to obtain an in-depth understanding of the spatial distribution of soil properties. In this study, soils were sampled at 181 locations in the Tropical Forest Research Center in the southwestern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region in southern China. We investigated the spatial variability of soil OM, TN, TP, and TK using geostatistical analysis. The nugget to sill ratio indicated a strong spatial dependence of soil TN and a moderate spatial dependence of soil OM, TP, and TK, suggesting that TN was primarily controlled by intrinsic factors (e.g., soil texture, parent material, vegetation type, and topography), whereas soil OM, TP, and TK were controlled by intrinsic and extrinsic factors (e.g., cultivation practices, fertilization, and planting systems). Based on the spatial variability determined by the geostatistical analysis, we performed ordinary kriging to create thematic maps of soil TN, TP, TK, and OM. Model validation indicated that the thematic maps were reliable to inform forest management.

The energy consumption of China's metropolitan areas has expanded from production areas to other areas such as the service area, and characteristics differ across small and medium-sized cities. Using the Logarithmic Mean Divisia Index (LMDI) decomposition method, we conducted a factor decomposition analysis on changes in energy consumption for 32 Chinese metropolises from 1995-2012 that had a resident population of at least 1 million people in 1995. On the basis of a comprehensive consideration of urban economic growth, population expansion and spatial expansion, energy consumption factors can be decomposed into five indicators: economic scale, energy consumption per unit of output value, energy consumption per capita, population density and energy space support coefficient. We valued the contribution of each factor to metropolises' energy consumption to determine generality and regional differences.

Extreme climate events exhibit an increasing spatio-temporal trend globally, and the increasing intensity and frequency may have severe impacts on the human society and natural ecosystems. This study analyzed the extreme temperature and precipitation variability from 1956 to 2016, and evaluated their potential effects on crop yield in Ethiopia. Relative extreme temperature indices exhibited a decreasing trend with low-temperature events, but a significantly upward trend with extreme high temperature events. The frequency of annual warm nights increased to a greater degree than that of cold days. The total annual wet-day precipitation decreased significantly at a rate of -46 mm/decade. Further, the succession of dry days gradually increased by 5.6 day/decade, while an opposite trend of wet days was found with a decline of 1.4 day/ decade. The correlation between annual precipitation and crop production was 0.422, indicating that extreme precipitation indices may have higher explanatory power than extreme temperature indices in the crop yield variations. Moreover, the extreme climate changes have induced significant adverse impacts on crops yield particularly in Ethiopia where no proper adaptation measures have been implemented.

Gross ecosystem product (GEP) is the gross value of all ecosystem products and services provided by ecosystems for human society. In practice, GEP measures the ecosystems' contributions to human well-being and constitutes one of the core issues in the construction of ecological civilization systems. Currently, GEP accounting faces a series of problems, such as the inconsistency of accounting subjects and a lack of accounting standards, the result of which is the non-reproducibility and weak applicability of accounting results. In this paper, mainstream models for ecosystem service valuation are summarized in a systematic manner. On this basis, eight basic principles are established for screening accounting indicators: biological productivity, human benefits, production territoriality, current increment, actual effectiveness, physical metrizability, data availability, and harmlessness. Next, a series of ecosystem service subjects are identified that need to be excluded from accounting, and the detailed reasons for their exclusion are presented. Finally, three ideas for improving GEP accounting are offered from the perspectives of the relationship between biological production and human production, the circulation-transport relationship and spatial differences, and harms to the ecosystem carrying capacity. The purpose is to provide positive considerations aimed at promoting the socio-economic applications of accounting and to contribute to the scientific quantification of the values of ecological products.

Cultivated land pressure is often used to reflect the shortage of cultivated land resources. By using the methods of the Cultivated Land Pressure Index, coefficient of variation and cold-hot spot analysis, this paper analyzes the spatial-temporal differentiation pattern and dynamic change processes of cultivated land pressure in the counties of the Pearl River-Xijiang Economic Zone from 2008 to 2017, and measures the factors which influence cultivated land pressure by using Principal Component Analysis. The results show that the cultivated land pressure in the Pearl River-Xijiang Economic Zone has been in a “high pressure” state, and the Cultivated Land Pressure Index has been rising continuously from 2008 to 2017. The coefficient of variation of the Cultivated Land Pressure Index in the Pearl River-Xijiang Economic Zone and various prefecture-level cities is fluctuating and rising, which indicates that the overall spatial differences in the cultivated land pressure in this region are expanding and polarization is obvious. In addition, the area where the municipal district of the provincial capital city is located is the core area of urban development and also the area with the greatest cultivated land pressure. The spatial pattern of cultivated land pressure cold-hot spots in the Pearl River-Xijiang Economic Zone is obviously heterogeneous, in which the Pearl River Economic Zone is the main hot spot gathering area and the Xijiang Economic Zone is the main cold spot gathering area. Farmers' income, investment in fixed assets, GDP, population and other socio-economic factors are the main factors driving the changes in the cultivated land pressure in the Pearl River-Xijiang Economic Zone. Furthermore, farming production factors, such as the multiple cropping index and grain yield per unit area, will also have an important impact on the changes in the cultivated land pressure.

Increasing pressure from the international community to reduce carbon emissions, coupled with the need to reduce domestic air pollutants, is forcing China to deal with both sources of emissions. Air pollutants and greenhouse gases are closely linked via their common source, fossil fuels. As a result of globalization, large portions of these emissions are associated with trade. This study uses data from the World Input-Output Database (WIOD), including 27 EU countries and 13 major countries, covering the period from 2000 to 2009, and applies MRIO (Multiregional input-output) to estimate emissions embodied in China’s international trade. We focus on the synergy between LAPs (local air pollutants) and GHG consumption-based emissions, and the relationship between virtual LAPs and virtual GHGs associated with China’s international trade from 2000 to 2009. The results indicate that a strong synergistic relationship exists and that air pollutant control can serve as an endogenous mechanism to mitigating greenhouse gases. Thanks to domestic actions to control air pollutants, every ton reduction of LAP emissions related to export can save 27.1 tons of GHG emissions in 2005 over emissions efficiency levels, and can save 32.4 tons of GHG emissions in 2009 over 2005. Mitigation actions taken to reduce air pollutants could also reduce GHG emissions.

Fluctuations in soil greenhouse gas (GHG) are an important part of the terrestrial ecosystem carbon-nitrogen cycle, but uncertainties remain about the dynamic change and budget assessment of soil GHG flux. Using high frequency and consecutive soil GHG fluxes measured with an automatic dynamic chamber system, we tested the applicability of the current Forest-DNDC model in simulating soil CH₄, CO₂ and N₂O fluxes in a temperate broad-leaved Korean pine forest at Changbai Mountain. The results showed that the Forest-DNDC model reproduced general patterns of environmental variables, however, simulated seasonal variation in soil temperature, snow melt processes and soil moisture partly deviated from measured variables, especially during the non-growing season. The modeled CH₄ flux was close to the field measurement and co-varied mainly with soil temperature and snowpack. The modeled soil CO₂ flux had the same seasonal trend to that of the observation along with variation in temperature, however, simulated CO₂ flux in the growing season was underestimated. The modeled N₂O flux attained a peak in summer due to the influence of temperature, which was apparently different from the observed peak of N₂O flux in the freeze-thaw period. Meanwhile, both modeled CO₂ flux and N₂O flux were dampened by rainfall events. Apart from consistent estimation of annual soil CH₄ flux, the annual accumulation of CO₂ and N₂O was underestimated. It is still necessary to further optimize model parameters and processes using long-term high-frequency observation data, especially transference of heat and water in soil and GHG producing mechanism. Continues work will improve modeling, ecosystem carbon-nitrogen budget assessment and estimation of soil GHGs flux from the site to the region.

Agricultural ecosystems are the largest managed ecosystem in the world.The sustainable development of agriculture is significant to the reversion of dramatic loss of biological diversity in the world.Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems(GIAHS)project launched by Food and Agriculture Organization(FAO)of the United Nations is among the global efforts to conserve and dynamically manage the specific agricultural knowledge system and landscapes.Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries(MAFF),Japan stressed the environmental concern of conventional farming practices in Japan in 1992.Noto Peninsula and Sado City were designated as two new GIAHS pilot sites in Japan as part of local level initiative to preserve the traditional agricultural systems in 2011.This paper reviewed the development process of sustainable farming in Japan and analyzed the challenges and new possibilities to its further extension.The current situation of various sustainable farming practices:such as farming with reduced input of chemical fertilizers and pesticides to conserve rich biodiversity,and organic farming,were reviewed.Emphasis was given to the sustainable farming practices in Hokuriku region,in particular,Ishikawa Prefecture and Sado City in Niigata Prefecture.Based on the recent official documents,reports and research papers,policy implication was brought forward.The challenges of sustainable farming practices and market valuation of sustainable farming products were analyzed.It was concluded that the environmental concerns of farmers and consumers are key to extend the sustainable farming practice in Japan.Conversion to bottom up policy making process paying attention to farmers' interest with involvement of multi stakeholders including government,researchers and private sectors is effective for sustainable farming extension.

Chengdu has experienced a rapid urbanization in the past two decades, and its land spatial pattern has undergone severe changes. It’s meaningful to investigate the tempo-spatial evolution of land spatial pattern and then contribute to high-quality development in Chengdu. Based on the Landsat-series satellite imagery and land use/cover datasets, this paper investigates Chengdu’s land function change concerning Production, Living and Ecological (PLE) land. The methods of land dynamics degree, landscape pattern index and Pearson correlation were be employed to analyzes the tempo-spatial evolution of landscape pattern in Chengdu, and some suggestions were finally made. We found that there were severe dynamic degree of PLE land in Chengdu and the production and ecological land were decrease obviously before 2015. Contrastingly, the dynamic degree is decrease after 2015, high dynamic degree regions are move to the northeast from 2000-2019. In addition, the change of production land is the main factor affecting the landscape pattern of Chengdu. In general, we put forward the macroscopic strategy and suggestions of “one core, two belts, four regions, and one direction” to support the high-quality development of Chengdu.

In a world of climate change and socio-economic development, oil is the strategic resource that is closely intertwined and interdependent. Tracing the evolution of petroleum resources flow is fundamental to understanding petroleum supply and demand, and can also serve as the basis for assessing CO₂ emissions from petroleum products. This paper aims to provide a petroleum products flow accounting framework that divides petroleum flow into four phases, three flows, three libraries, and two processes, and summarizes the approach to measure and analyze petroleum resources flows. It takes China as an example for empirical research, and finds that: ① China’s petroleum production, consumption and import have significantly increased over the past two decades, and the combination of increasing demand and limited supply have created an urgent need for China to diversify its petroleum sources globally to ensure its oil security. ② Final consumption accounts for the use of most petroleum products and special attention should be paid to the losses in the petroleum refining process. ③ With the exception of crude oil, petroleum product flows among various sectors has changed greatly. Particularly, the flow of petroleum products into transport and residential consumption has trended upward significantly, whereas the flow to industry is trending downward. ④ CO₂ emission data shows that CO₂ emission amounts increased rapidly from 456Mt in 1993 to 1517Mt in 2013. Previously, the top three CO₂ emitters were the industrial sector, the transport sector including the transport, storage and post segments, and the thermal power sector. Currently, the largest emitters are the transport sector, the industrial sector and the residential consumption sector. Finally, poorly demarcated system boundaries and incomplete databases and models constrain research on industry flows of petroleum resources for non-energy use.

The aim of this study is to understand ecotourism resources, taking into considering their quality and the comparative advantages of districts in order to develop effective strategy. Ecotourism is an important developmental model for those undeveloped regions that have superior landscape resources in ecologically fragile environments. This article has identified 181 ecotourism sites in Guizhou province, based on field work in the province. A quantitative assessment using 18 indicators was performed and, based on the results, these resources were divided into five levels. The paper also analyzed the comparative advantage of districts to reflect the developmental potential of different districts. Results show that ecotourism resources in Guihzhou province are numerous, varied in type and high quality; among them, six sites ranked level 5 represented the essence of Guizhou province. Moreover, there are four districts that are high superiority — Anshun, Qiannan and Qianxinan and Zunyi - one that is average and four that are low. According to our analysis, ecotourism development models for Guizhou province can be classified into four types; effective strategies were proposed for each.

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.

Species richness and diversity indices (Shannon-Wiener index, Simpson dominance index and Pielou evenness index) in alpine grassland ecosystems (alpine meadow, alpine steppe and desert steppe) under grazing-excluded and freely grazed sites were investigated along the Northern Tibetan Plateau Alpine Grassland Transect during summer 2009 and 2010.We found that species richness and diversity have not been significantly altered by short-term grazing exclusion since 2006 at vegetation and regional scales.Species richness and diversity were mainly driven by growing season precipitation (GSP), which accounted for over 87% of the total variation observed.Species richness and diversity at grazing-excluded and freely grazed sites appear to respond to growing season precipitation in parallel.Species richness exponentially increased with GSP while diversity indices showed positively linear relationships with GSP.This indicates that GSP on the Northern Tibetan Plateau is crucial in regulating species richness and diversity and should be taken into account in future studies on alpine grassland conservation.