Grasslands cover 25% of global land, and provide 20% of human dietary protein and store over 30% of terrestrial carbon. There has been a substantial amount of research on the topic of grassland ecosystem services (GES). However, existing reviews primarily focus on the spatiotemporal changes in the quantity of these services, lacking a comprehensive global discussion on service variations, driving factors, and mitigation strategies. This study employs a combined approach of empirical analysis and systematic review to analyze 534 peer-reviewed publications indexed in Web of Science (1997-2023). The study aims to: (1) evaluate current research on GES, (2) identify key drivers of change and their impacts, and (3) suggest practical strategies for sustainable grassland management. The study found that: (1) Research on grassland ecosystem services has surged in the past decades, mostly in regions with large grasslands and strong economies, with over half of studies conducted in China (39.58%) and the U.S. (16.67%). (2) A total of 41 GESs were identified under four broad categories, with regulating services most studied and cultural services least. (3) Most articles focus on causes of changes, while fewer address human well-being and management. (4) Climate change and human activities are the main drivers, impacting 81.15% and 70.36% of global grasslands, respectively. (5) The affected area is expanding, reaching 2500.67 million ha and 2094.68 million ha in 2018. We discussed potential reasons for the findings, identified research gaps, highlighted future research areas, and addressed current grassland management issues and offered some practical recommendations. Most importantly, we propose a novel “Ecosystem Service-based Grassland Management” (ESGM) framework. The framework’s innovation lies in its systematic integration of three critical dimensions: (1) grassland ecosystem service assessment, (2) management practices, and (3) human well-being. This integrated approach offers a robust decision-support tool for policymakers operating at various governance levels.
Urbanization has been widely recognized as one of the most important factors affecting urban land use, especially in densely populated and ecologically sensitive river basins. Therefore, cities must transition from high-pollution practices to more sustainable land resource management for socio-economic development. The objective of this study was to fill the knowledge gap regarding the impact of urbanization on urban land green use efficiency (ULGUE) and its regional variations. To achieve this, the Malmquist-Luenberger model and a spatial econometric model were employed to assess ULGUE and examine the spatial correlation between urbanization and ULGUE from 2005 to 2022. The analysis was conducted in China’s prefecture-level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) and Yellow River Basin (YRB) regions. The results indicated that the ULGUE of the YREB fluctuated upward, whereas that of the YRB fluctuated downward, with cities along the rivers exhibiting higher efficiency was higher. The spatial distribution characteristics of urbanization rates in the two basins demonstrated that the Heihe-Tengchong Line serves as a dividing line for urbanization levels. In addition, the spatial relationship between urbanization and ULGUE exhibited significant heterogeneity across different basins and cities of varying sizes. These findings inform decision-making for sustainable urban development in river basins.
People-oriented new-type urbanization emphasizes the synergistic improvement of level and quality. This study, based on a quantity-quality synergy perspective, constructs a unified theoretical framework integrating these two dimensions. Focusing on the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) from 2000 to 2022, this study comprehensively examines its new-type urbanization using methods including the entropy method, kernel density estimation, and a synergy evolution model, with driving mechanisms revealed by a Geodetector. The results indicate that: (1) Both the urbanization level and quality in the YREB have continuously increased, with the level rising from 32.54 to 61.64 and the quality from 43.47 to 67.93. However, the urbanization level remains below the national average and exhibits significant regional disparities. (2) The spatial pattern reveals a hierarchical gradient characterized by “downstream leading, midstream in the middle, and upstream lowest”. While central cities demonstrate radiating effects, siphoning effects persist in major southwestern cities, and the northern downstream area lags behind. (3) The synergistic evolution of urbanization level and quality significantly improved, transitioning from a polarized state of “quality lag” and “level imbalance” towards coordinated development. (4) The urbanization development patterns have shifted from extensive to optimal and imbalanced types. The downstream region is dominated by the optimal type, while the midstream and upstream areas primarily exhibit the imbalanced pattern, highlighting a significant potential for level improvement. (5) New-type urbanization in the YREB is driven by the synergistic effects of natural endowment, government regulation, and market adjustment, forming a tripartite system where “Innovation+” plays a particularly crucial role. This research provides a scientific basis for promoting new-type urbanization construction and high-quality development.
For ecotourism destinations, it is critical to balance rapid urban expansion with ecological protection. Focusing on the National Ecotourism Collaborative Zone in southeastern China, this study constructs an integrated analytical framework encompassing “scale-density-morphology” to characterize urban land dynamics. By employing two-step cluster analysis and Geographical Detector models, we identified distinct spatial pattern typologies and quantified the individual and interactive effects of natural, socio-economic, and tourism-specific drivers. Results reveal that urban land expanded dramatically from 4698.85 km2 in 2000 to 10,204.88 km2 in 2023. Concurrently, the number of cities exhibiting high Aggregation Index (AI>75) increased from 4 to 12. The spatial pattern types of the 19 cities can be classified into four categories. Notably, while overall spatial typologies remained relatively stable across cities, the hotspots of urban expansion gradually shifted from tertiary to secondary and primary tourism destinations. Factor detection results show that tourism-related drivers—such as tourism revenue, passenger turnover volume, and tourism resource endowment—exerted growing influence on urban land expansion over time, particularly after 2015. Meanwhile, natural environmental factors increasingly constrained urban form and density. Furthermore, interaction detection shows that the combined effects of natural, socio-economic, and tourism industry factors significantly amplified their individual influences.
Tourism carbon emission efficiency (TCEE) reflects the low-carbon transformation performance of service-oriented regional economies, yet its spatial drivers remain insufficiently understood. Using panel data for 108 prefecture- level cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2006-2022, this study measures TCEE with a slack-based measure model incorporating undesirable outputs and a Global Malmquist-Luenberger index, and examines the spatial effects of economic restructuring and green technological progress through a spatial Durbin model. The results show that TCEE remains below the efficiency frontier but exhibits a gradual upward trend with pronounced regional disparities. A significant positive spatial dependence indicates that efficiency improvements in one city are associated with those in neighboring cities. Economic structural adjustment—particularly industrial upgrading and energy structure optimization—significantly enhances local TCEE and generates positive spatial spillovers. Urbanization displays a nonlinear relationship with TCEE, characterized by a U-shaped local effect and an inverted U-shaped spillover effect. Green technological progress improves local efficiency, while its spillover effects vary across regions. This study provides empirical evidence that tourism low-carbon transition is jointly shaped by structural transformation and technological progress through spatial interactions. The findings highlight the importance of coordinated regional governance in promoting low-carbon development in large economic belt.
Ecological resilience (ER) reflects an ecosystem's capacity to adapt to climate change, natural disturbances, and human-induced stress. This study evaluated ER in the Qinling-Daba Mountains (QDM), China, from 2000 to 2020 using a resistance-robustness- recovery model. Specifically, the PLUS model was employed to assess the impacts of land use change on ER under three scenarios: natural development (NDS), ecological preservation (EPS), and farmland preservation (FPS). Spatial drivers of ER were analyzed using the geographic detector model and multi-scale geographically weighted regression. The results revealed a significant upward trend in ER, with high values in central and southern QDM and low values in urban lowland areas. Regarding the scenarios, ER improved under EPS, plateaued under NDS, and declined under FPS. The key drivers were found to be NDVI, slope, DEM, temperature, and nighttime light. ER showed positive correlations with high NDVI and slope and negative correlations with low vegetation and flat terrain. These findings provide deeper insight into ER dynamics and scientific guidance for regional ecological protection, planning, and resilience building in the QDM and similar mountainous ecosystems globally.
Understanding the spatial network structures and heterogeneous driving factors of urban ecological resilience (UER) is essential for effective regional collaborative governance, yet it is often overlooked in traditional assessments. Focusing on the Yellow River Basin (YRB), this study constructs an evaluation system for UER based on the “Absorption-Resistance-Renewal” framework. Specifically, it explores the network spatial connections and the network spatial structures of UER among cities by combining social network analysis. Subsequently, the spatially constrained hierarchical clustering algorithm is used to integrate complex networks into the zoning system. Furthermore, a comprehensive analysis of the factors affecting UER is conducted using an interpretable machine learning method. The results show that: (1) The UER in the YRB exhibits an inverted U-shaped trend, first increasing and then decreasing. There are significant disparities at both the city and provincial levels, with substantial internal differences and a more scattered distribution in cities of Shanxi and Shaanxi. (2) The classification of UER in the YRB shows a clear change in levels, with 45.76% of cities falling into the High and Very High categories in 2016. (3) Most cities in the YRB do not exhibit a high intensity of correlation, but the correlation between regional cities is relatively stable. (4) There are significant regional differences in the dominant factors affecting UER. Environmental regulation is the primary driver in regions I and II. These findings provide valuable scientific insights for enhancing UER and offer a basis for regional zoning governance in the YRB.
Wetland ecosystem services (ES) are influenced in opposite ways by ecological threats and conservation management, yet their combined effects on ES trade-offs and synergies remain largely understudied. To address this, we developed an evaluation indicator system for 1977 Ramsar Sites globally and calculated indices of ES importance (ESI), ecological threat intensity (ETI), and conservation management intensity (CMI) using the extremum value method. Generalized additive models were applied to analyze the nonlinear responses of ES trade-offs and synergies along CMI and ETI gradients. We found that 58.9% of Ramsar Sites provided ~70% of important ES, yet over half still faced significant ecological threats. Conservation management effects varied by service type and often conflicted; notably, no level of CMI enhanced both biodiversity and other ES (provisioning, regulating, supporting, and cultural services) simultaneously. Trade-offs between important species and other ES peaked at CMI ~0.60 and ETI ~0.65/0.80, while higher CMI or lower ETI tended to homogenize synergies among other ES. These findings highlight how ES trade-offs and synergies varied along CMI and ETI gradients. Our study not only offers insights into the optimal intensities for improving ES synergies and mitigating trade-offs, but also provides critical action priorities for Ramsar Sites to achieve sustainable development goals.
Establishing a scientifically sound ecological security pattern (ESP) is essential for maintaining ecological security in arid regions. Although notable progress has been made in the construction of ESP, studies that systematically integrate the trade-offs and synergies between ecosystem services (ESs) supply and demand into the ESP optimization process is still lacking. In arid regions, regional demands for water yield and carbon storage form the core of ecological security, directly influencing ecosystem stability. Thus, we enhanced the evaluation of water yield and carbon storage demands and proposed a novel ESP optimization framework that explicitly incorporates ESs supply-demand trade-offs and synergies. Ecological sources were identified based on both ESs supply and supply-demand trade-offs. Resistance surfaces were optimized using multidimensional factors, and ecological corridors and pinch points were delineated with circuit theory to refine the ESP in the Hexi Corridor. The improved demand evaluation methods for water yield and carbon storage achieved high spatial accuracy. Due to environmental variation and anthropogenic pressures, ESs supply, demand and their interactions showed marked spatial heterogeneity. The ESP optimization framework identified 157 ecological sources, revealed key resistance mechanisms and delineated 196 ecological corridors and 656 pinch points, demonstrating its scientific rigor and spatial validity. An ESP featuring “two belts, three corridors, and four zones” was developed. Targeted optimization strategies were proposed, including source restoration, resistance surface regulation, enhanced corridor connectivity, and multi-scale synergistic restoration. The proposed ESP optimization framework is founded on an intrinsic transmission mechanism linking the regulation of production-living-ecological space demands, the optimization of supply-demand relationships, and the enhancement of ESP. By integrating the restructuring of ESs supply-demand relationships into the ESP optimization process, this framework establishes a targeted optimization pathway for arid regions and promotes a transition in ecological restoration from “passive conservation” to “active regulation”.
Ancient agricultural development has been affected by climate change. The upper Yinghe River draining into the Huaihe River represents an important region for tracing the origins of primitive agriculture in China. To clarify the relationship between primitive agriculture and climate change in this region, optically stimulated luminescence (OSL) dating and physicochemical analyses were performed on a Holocene loess-paleosol PLG profile. The results indicated that paleosol (S0) developed during the mid-Holocene climatic optimum (8500-3100 a BP). The OSL ages of 7220±700 and 6800±400 a were obtained from the lower and middle parts of S0, respectively, and the cultural remains at 70 cm yielded an OSL age of 6890±400 a. These chronological results were consistent with the age of the Peiligang Culture (7800-7300 a BP) during the Neolithic period. In the S0 layer, the fine silt and clay contents and magnetic susceptibility reached their highest values, whereas the higher total organic carbon (TOC) content and lower pH values indicated a warmer and more humid climate. Such favorable hydrothermal conditions promoted weathering and pedogenesis, facilitated S0 formation, and created suitable soil conditions for agricultural development during the Peiligang cultural period. These findings suggest that climate exerted key control on Holocene loess pedogenesis and that Neolithic primitive agriculture was closely associated with the favorable climate and well-developed soils of the mid-Holocene climatic optimum.
Geography education and academic publishing are deeply interconnected, yet a significant imbalance exists due to the dominance of Western frameworks in both textbook curricula and journal publishing. Resolving this regional imbalance requires a reciprocal feedback loop where academic journals translate theoretical research into practical teaching resources, while diverse classrooms serve as grounds to test and refine those theories. Integrating a critical approach based on a questioning spirit, structural awareness, and logical thinking allows educators and editors to align teaching realities with publishing standards, fostering a more globally balanced and diverse discipline.
