The community perception of human-water connections is indirectly influenced by the landscape context: A case study in the lower reaches of the Yellow river

The environmental impact assessment of China's ecological migration from a social-ecological perspective

When accounting for the social-ecological impact of an ecological restoration program, both objective environmental contexts and people's subjective perceptions are required. While this kind of environmental impact assessment lacks a comprehensive perspective. We use the difference-in-differences model to evaluate the effect of the greenness of the landscape after ecological migration in the Qilian Mountains in China; and analysis of variance and fixed effects models are used to evaluate the effects of such ecological restoration programs on local people's perceptions. The results show that the ecological migration program in the Qilian Mountains has been successful at not only significantly improving remotely sensed greenness at the landscape scale, but also at enhancing immigrants' environmental perceptions. These findings demonstrate the environmental impacts of ecological migration from a social-ecological perspective, and can provide methodological implications for landscape planning to support a better understanding of ecological restoration programs in the drylands.

Analysis of the evolution of water culture and water security in the Weihe River Basin over a 100 year-period

The significance of water culture in addressing water crises and ensuring water security has garnered considerable attention, emerging as a focal point in global change and water science research. Water culture is a societal adaptation to changes in hydrological systems. However, this needs to be acknowledged within contemporary discourse on water security governance. This study utilized historical policy document data from many sources, including local municipal records from Shaanxi and Gansu, and water conservancy records. It aimed to identify the significant nodes and stages of policy transformation in the Weihe River Basin (WRB) during the last century (1949-2020). This study employed a content analysis method to elucidate the evolutionary patterns of water culture in the study region during the previous century. Drawing on the co-evolution framework, our investigation delved into the reciprocal relationship between changes in water culture and the evolution of water security in the WRB. Our findings indicated that water culture transformation in the WRB has undergone four significant stages: the Disaster-Resistant Hydraulic (1949-1966), Irrigation Hydraulic (1967-1998), Resources Hydraulic (1999-2010), and Ecological Hydraulic (2011-2020) phases. Water security assessment showed that policy attention varied across the different stages. The disaster-resistant hydraulic phase primarily addressed water-related disaster concerns, whereas the irrigation hydraulic phase emphasized the scarcity of water resources. The resource hydraulic phase focused on ensuring the security of the water environment, while the ecological hydraulic phase placed emphasis on safeguarding water sustainability. Moreover, we found that prevailing water policies prioritize resolving isolated issues; however, water security is a multifaceted systemic matter that requires a comprehensive approach. This study has the potential to offer policy makers a more comprehensive and systematic perspective, enabling them to enhance their understanding of the underlying nature of the problems. Additionally, this study can assist in developing future water security policies.

Differentiated impacts of environmental contexts on residents' environmental attitudes towards ecological restoration programs of China's drylands

Residents' environmental attitudes (EAs) towards ecological restoration programs are vital for evaluating program effectiveness and promoting environmental management. However, most local studies have neglected the indirect environmental contextual influences on residents' EAs, and have omitted the regional variations in the environmental contextual influences. To investigate the multilevel factors affecting residents' EAs, we conducted a transect survey that included the eastern, middle, and western regions in northern China's drylands, where have experienced ecological restoration. Multilevel linear models (MLMs) were applied to analyse the direct and indirect impacts of environmental contexts and individual characteristics on rural residents' EAs. The results showed the environmental context can indirectly impact EAs by amplifying the influence of individual characteristics such as family structure and income on EAs. The EAs are influenced by different local environmental contexts among the east, middle and west of China's drylands. The humidity attitude was influenced by precipitation only in the highly arid western and middle regions, while precipitation attitude is strongly influenced by land surface temperature and humidity in eastern China's drylands. These findings hold important implications for understanding the cross-scale impact of environmental contexts on EAs in drylands.

Ecological restoration for sustainable development in China

Facing the need for transdisciplinary research to promote ecological restoration that achieves both social and ecological benefits, research on past restoration efforts that have directly or indirectly contributed to regional or national sustainable development warrants reassessment. Using China as an example, in this review, we address three basic research questions that can be summarized as follows: ecological restoration-of what, for whom and to what purpose? Accordingly, a 'landscape pattern-ecosystem service-sustainable development' co-evolutionary framework is proposed here to describe landscape-scale ecological restoration and its impact on landscape patterns and ecological processes, ecosystem services for human well-being, sustainable livelihoods and socioeconomic development. From the strategic pattern of national ecological security to the pattern of major projects to protect and restore major national ecosystems, the spatial pattern of China's ecological restoration is more geographically integrative. From major function-oriented zoning to systematic ecological protection and restoration, and for the purpose of achieving the Beautiful China Initiative, there are three stages of ecosystem services management: classification, synergy and integration, respectively. The difference in geographic processes should be considered in the key requirements of ecological restoration for China's five national strategies for regional sustainable-development strategies. Deepening understanding of the relationship between humans and nature in different geographical contexts is a scientific prerequisite to support policymaking related to ecological restoration. To promote greater harmony between humans and nature, we propose four important research directions: (i) understanding coupling processes among key components, (ii) identifying ecosystem service flows, (iii) evaluating social-ecological benefits and (iv) supporting adaptive management for regional sustainable development.