Abstract: Horizontal ecological compensation is a key policy instrument for incentivizing the sustained supply of ecosystem services. It is also a crucial approach for achieving the goals of ecological and environmental protection, balanced regional development, and social equity. This study explores the spatiotemporal changes in the ecosystem services of the Miyun Reservoir Basin in the context of the Beijing-Hebei transboundary horizontal ecological compensation policy. Four types of ecosystem services, namely, grain production, water yield, carbon sequestration, and soil retention, were quantitatively evaluated based on InVEST models and the spatial analysis method of ArcGIS in Miyun Reservoir Basin from 2010 to 2023. The key findings include three main points. (1) After the implementation of the horizontal compensation policy (2018–2023), the water yield, carbon sequestration, and soil retention services showed significant recovery, with a notable increase in grain production, thus validating the effectiveness of the “incentive-feedback” dynamic mechanism. Economic inputs and institutional constraints drove the regulation of human activities, which enhanced ecosystem services, while ecosystem service improvements reciprocally supported the optimization of policy, forming a virtuous cycle of “policy incentives and institutional constraints - economic inputs - green actions”. (2) The spatiotemporal heterogeneity of ecosystem services was significant. Temporally, all four services exhibited upward trends after 2018, but the reduced precipitation in 2023 triggered anomalous fluctuations in water yield and soil retention, highlighting the interference of climate change with policy outcomes. (3) Spatially, grain production migrated toward the upper reaches of the Chaohe River and Baihe River, water yield was clustered in the upper Baihe and Chaohe sub-basins, carbon sequestration was extended to the mountainous areas with the expansion of forestland, and soil retention showed a pattern of high in the middle and low in the east and west, reflecting the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of ecosystem services throughout the basin. Finally, this study proposes differentiated watershed governance and ecological compensation paths, and recommends tailored compensation standards for ecological functional zones, as well as targeted mechanisms for cropland protection, water conservation, and carbon sink enhancement. A climate-adaptive policy framework should be established to address future uncertainties and optimize Beijing-Hebei transboundary horizontal ecological compensation policies.

Few studies have categorically analyzed the factors governing soil erosion spatial layout formation and changes within it from a static or dynamic perspective. In this study, we explored the factors influencing soil erosion changes in Liangshan Prefecture, Sichuan Province. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation model was used to cal-culate and grade the soil erosion modulus in the study area from 1990 to 2023 and analyze its spatiotemporal variations. Geographical detectors were introduced to determine the factors influencing erosion layout, inception, and development. From 1990 to 2023, soil erosion in Liangshan Prefecture was moderately low. Areas with high soil erosion grades were mainly distributed in the Niri, Meigu, and Zhaojue river basins, characterized by low vegetation coverage and high topographic fluctuation, and along the Jinsha River, which is greatly affected by industrial development. Land use type was the most critical factor affecting the spatial layout of the soil erosion intensity. Precipitation (55.28%) was the dominant factor governing the change in soil erosion intensity distribu-tion. This study revealed the dynamic changes and driving factors of soil erosion in the past 30 years in Liang-shan and suggests erosion prevention measures that can be used for regional soil erosion control.

After the COP28 Conference, many countries are increasingly concerned about their future practices regarding food security. In North Asia, the Northeast China is the major food production base for the country. Across the border, the economy of Mongolia is heavily reliant on agricultural production and animal husbandry. In recent years, climatic extremes such as droughts and floods, combined with human-induced overgrazing, have posed alarming threats to food security. This review illustrates the challenges and constraints these two countries are facing due to climate changes and summarizes the existing measures and established programs in both countries. Furthermore, we develop the “Climate Resilient Agriculture” (CRA) framework for improving agricultural resilience. This framework emphasizes the importance of international institutions, such as the World Bank, and developed countries to provide more financial and technological support to bolster climate resilience in Northern Asia. Finally, we conclude by encouraging cross-border co-production and collaborations among governments to implement the CRA framework to tackle future climatic challenges.

Within the domain of homestays, it is imperative to prioritize the augmentation of hosts' pivotal role and the facilitation of pro-environmental behavior among tourists as essential strategies for promoting the sustainability of homestay accommodations. This research utilizes homestays in Pingtan Island as a specific example and employs a survey methodology to collect data. Additionally, a structural equation model is utilized to analyze the causal relationship between situational factors within homestays and the pro-environmental behavior of tourists, specifically within the context of host-guest interaction. The results of the study indicate that there is a favorable correlation between environmental quality and the interaction between hosts and guests, and visitors' pro-environmental behaviors. Furthermore, it is worth noting that situational circumstances play a crucial role in shaping the dynamics of host-guest interaction. This, in turn, serves as a mediator for the influence of situational factors on tourists' pro-environmental behavior. Based on the aforementioned findings, the present study proceeds to examine the pragmatic ramifications of the research and provides recommendations for prospective areas of investigation.

Street greening is a popular topic in urban design research. Traditionally, assessments for urban greening levels using Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from satellite remote sensing images, often overlooking street greening from a human-scale perspective. This study combined spatial syntax, machine learning tech-niques, streetscape images, and remote sensing data to comprehensively assess thoroughly analyse street greening levels in Chengdu’s Third Ring Road. Additionally, by integrating accessibility analysis with GVI, this study identified areas that should be prioritised for street greening interventions. The results indicate that: (i) Streets in the western and southern regions of Chengdu City’s Third Ring Road possessed higher GVI. (ii) There is a significant difference in the overall distributions of GVI and NDVI, particularly in the central and eastern re-gions. (iii) Streets with “high commuting and walking accessibility (low GVI) overlapped in the area east of Shuncheng Avenue. The methodology presented in this study can serve as a reference for human-scale street greening in Chengdu and other cities.

Taking Shanghai as an example, this study obtained the online travel notes data from Xiaohongshu and Qunar in the past 10 years to construct the Shanghai tourist flow network (STFN) and used the methods of change point detection (CPD) and complex network analysis (CNA) to reveal the spatial structure characteristics of Shanghai tourism flow and the dynamic evolution process of STFN. The results showed that: (1) In the past 10 years, Shanghai tourist market had experienced a process of evolution from stable and orderly to short-term fluctuation and then gradual recovery, and the year of 2019 was the turning point of tourist flow network evolu-tion. (2) The small-world and approximate scale-free characteristics of STFN were verified, and the network changed from disassortative to temporary assortative, showing a development trend of external expansion and internal separation. (3)While the centrality indicators of tourist flow network remained stable as a whole, the at-tention to cultural nodes was also increasing with the emergence of new nodes; (4) In terms of spatial connec-tion, new popular nodes emerged and the relationship between them and the surrounding nodes was strength-ened; (5) The spatial pattern of tourist flow network presented an inverted “V” shape and gradually expanded to southwest and southeast, forming a network with core nodes as the center and radiating outward. At the same time, newly emerging nodes at the periphery had formed relatively independent clusters.

Abuse of chemical fertilizer and pesticide will not only impair the quality of agricultural products, but also damage the agricultural ecological environment. From the perspective of cooperatives’ socialized services, this paper studies agricultural households’ chemical fertilizer and pesticide use behavior, attempting to provide ref-erences for the government’s formulation of relevant policies and cooperatives’ adjustment of their operation strategies. The survey data of 518 agricultural households in Zigui County and Badong County, Hubei Province, China are used to examine the influence of cooperatives and their socialized services on agricultural house-holds’ chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity via propensity score matching. Research reveals that: (1) Joining cooperatives has a significantly negative influence on agricultural households’ chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity, and the average treatment effect is –341.505 yuan mu–1. (2) Agricultural materials supply services and technical support services can significantly bring down agricultural households’ chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity, and the average treatment effect is –225.966 yuan mu–1 and –163.580 yuan mu–1, respectively. While the influence of agricultural products sale services on chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity is not significant. (3) Grouped investigation is carried out by age, education years and planting scale, and the influence of socialized services on agricultural householders’ chemical fertilizer and pesticide use in-tensity is obviously varied among different groups. The influence of agricultural materials supply services on agricultural households who are elder, with smaller education years and small planting scale is significant; the influence of technical support services on agricultural households who are younger, with higher education years and small planting scale is significant; the influence of agricultural products sale services on agricultural households who are elder is significant. It is necessary to improve the percentage of agricultural households joining cooperatives, increase the supply level of cooperatives’ socialized services, and make socialized ser-vices of cooperatives more targeted. All this can contribute to further reduction of agricultural households’ chemical fertilizer and pesticide use intensity.

In order to improve the LER index assessment, this study takes the Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration (PRDUA) as the research object, introduces the vulnerability assessment method for human-earth areal system, and analyzes the vulnerability, landscape disturbance, and improved LER of the PRDUA in 2002, 2007, 2012, 2017, and 2022. The contribution of ecological land restoration to the evolution of LER is measured using the factor detector and interaction detector results of the Geodetector. Four restoration indicators are selected: ecological land area, proportion, cohesion, and AI (Aggregation Index). The results show that: (1) Between 2002 and 2022, the vulnerability in PRDUA exhibited a decreasing trend, albeit with notable spatial disparities. Areas of low vulnerability predominantly lie on the periphery of PRDUA, whereas high vulnerability zones are concentrated within its core. (2) The change in LER and vulnerability is highly consistent. Between 2002 and 2022, the high-risk areas show a shrinking trend and are mainly located in Guangzhou, Foshan, Dongguan, and Shenzhen. Low-risk areas are mainly located at the edge of the PRDUA. (3) Based on the Geodetector, the contribution of single factor of ecological land restoration to LER change is low, and the contribution of two factor interaction is significantly enhanced, especially the cohesion and AI interactions contributed the most. In the period 2012-2022, the q-value of the explanatory power of the interaction between cohesion change and AI change reached 62.213%, which was the strongest explanation for changes in LER. These findings provide an innovative approach to understanding and mitigating LER in highly urbanized areas, and are also important for building ecological security patterns and promoting sustainable development.

Scientifically mitigating the ecological risks in tourist destinations is an important foundation for the healthy and sustainable development of tourist destinations.In this study, we summarize the progress of ecological risk re-search in tourist destinations at home and abroad and the internal logic of ecological risk research in tourist des-tinations. Current research adhered to an internal framework encompassing the following stages: formation and analysis of ecological risks in tourism destinations, exposure characterization, effect exploration, risk assess-ment, and risk management. Specific research results were summarized in four aspects: the analysis of eco-logical risk sources,assessment of acceptors and endpoints, ecological risk assessment, perceptions of ecolog-ical risk, predictions and management of ecological risks within tourism destinations. Future research should prioritize fostering a harmonious relationship between humanity and natural environment, which necessitates strengthening the foundation of a multidisciplinary theory. Future research should focus on the formation mechanisms of ecological risks in tourist destinations, the mechanisms of interaction among ecological risk sources, receptors, and endpoints, ecological risk assessments of tourist destinations based on multiple risk sources, ecological risk assessments of typical tourism destinations and their key exposures, enhancing the ecological risk assessment index system for tourist destinations by incorporating data from various sources, conducting simulation studies to develop ecological risk warning systems for tourist destinations, exploring the spatiotemporal scale coupling relationships of ecological risks in tourist destinations, examining the perceptions and attitudes of different stakeholders towards ecological risks in tourist destinations, evaluating the cost-benefit of ecological risk adaptation, and performing prevention measures in tourist destinations.

Among cultural ecosystem services, aesthetic value is one of the most strongly related to humans. The scientific assessment of the aesthetic value of cultural ecosystem services plays a vital role in achieving the refined management of national park ecosystems. In the current study, Qianjiangyuan National Park in China was taken as an example, three typical types of aesthetic ecosystem services (AESs) were extracted, and an AES evaluation index system was constructed by combining the cultural attributes and landscape aesthetic value of national parks. Tourists’ value perception of AESs was analyzed based on 542 valid survey questionnaires, and the influences of various demographic characteristics were explored using one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA). Based on this, the importance and overall level of various AESs in national parks were systematically evaluated using the entropy method and the fuzzy comprehensive evaluation method. The results reveal the following. (1) Tourists believe that national parks have natural, cultural, and social aesthetic service value. The value perception of physical and mental health services is the highest (2.44), while that of spiritual worship services is the lowest (1.86). (2) Different demographic characteristics have significant impacts on the value perception of aesthetic services. The greater the number of visits to the national park, the higher the tourists’ value perception of primitive wilderness, spiritual wo rship, folk culture, and human settlement services. Moreover, tourists visiting the national park for research purposes have the highest value perception of natural ASEs. (3) There are cognitive differences in the importance of various AESs: cultural aesthetic services (0.8473) > natural aesthetic services (0.7032) > social aesthetic services (0.5780). Moreover, tourists consider spiritual worship services to be the most important (0.3695). (4) The value perception evaluation of the AESs of the national park is generally high, with a comprehensive evaluation score of 4.11, among which the value of physical and mental health services is the highest (4.44) and that of primitive wilderness services is the lowest (3.92). The results of this study are helpful for further improving the management level of national park ecosystems. 

This article uses a multi-case analysis method to investigate the mechanisms of ecological product value realization, and influencing factors. Specifically, we use a case analysis framework based on the “economy-society-natural ecology” perspective to analyze and compare the three batches of “Typical Cases of Ecological Product Value Realization” released by the Ministry of Natural Resources. We find: First, different modes of ecological product value realization exist. Different resource endowments, and institutional and environmental factors affect the selection of the value realization modes. Second, certain obstacles also exist for realizing ecological product value, which are mainly reflected in the fact that the articulation of the individual, society, and government is not yet sufficiently close. Third, to promote the development of regional eco-products’ mode and value conversion, the implementing party needs to guide the synergy between individual concepts, social participation, and governmental top-level design; rationally arrange the allocation of resource elements; mitigate elemental constraints; and propose effective technical means and optimization strategies according to the actual situation.

Grasslands have critically important ecological and economic values while most of them have been suffering from various degrees of degradation in China due to overgrazing. The “Forage-Livestock Balance” (FLB) policy has been implemented for more than a decade, aims to balance the relationship between forage productivity and grazing consumption of grasslands by livestock. According to the review of statistical data and literatures on policy evaluation, FLB-dominated subsidies for grassland ecological conservation policies are ineffective on grassland restoration, livestock reduction in some overloaded areas and improvement on herdsmen livelihood. To deal with the dilemma, we suggest a fundamental shift of strategy from controlling livestock numbers to maintaining and improving grassland health (MIGH) based on ecological theories, and promote the sustainable development of grassland in China. The results show that, FLB policy failed to obtain expected benefits mainly because it interfered with the herders’ autonomous use of contracted grasslands along with the defects of its underlying theory and methodologies. Implementing reward and punishment based on ecosystem health will not only motivate herders to manage their grassland autonomously, but also be more scientific and feasible than FLB.