Towards an integrated approach for land spatial ecological restoration zoning based on ecosystem health assessment

Mitigating ecosystem degradation has been a worldwide strategy, and China has been implementing land spatial ecological restoration for an all-around ecological preservation in recent years. A comprehensive diagnosis of the ecosystem health status and an effective division of spatial zoning are essential to formulating and implementing ecological restoration strategies at the regional scale. Here, the ecosystem health index (EHI) was computed for the years 2010 and 2020 using the vigor-organization-resilience model. Then, a three-step statistic-based, spatial continuity-based, and practice-based (SSP) zoning framework was developed to classify land spatial ecological restoration zones with the consideration of ecosystem health status, spatial relation, and local practices. We applied the integrated zoning approach using the urban agglomeration in the middle reaches of Yangtze River (UAMRYR) in China as the study area. The results showed that: (1) the EHI had a slight decreasing trend from 2010 to 2020, with a spatial distribution pattern of healthy, unhealthy, and to healthy from the center to the periphery in the UAMRYR. (2) Eight land spatial ecological restoration zones were designated and adjusted through the SSP zoning framwork to be space-full and practical. Zone VIII accounted for the largest proportion (41.12%), followed by the Zone Ⅰ (21.57%). (3) Finally, corresponding land spatial ecological restoration strategies were proposed for each zone. This study contributes to land spatial ecological restoration zoning and differentiated restoration strategies in the UAMRYR, shedding light on restoration regulation and Sustainable Development Goals achievement in China and global regions with complicated environmental problems

Constructing Cellulose Diacetate Aerogels with Pearl-Necklace-like Skeleton Networking Structure

Cellulose and its derivative aerogels have attracted much attention due to their renewable and biodegradable properties. However, the significant shrinkage in the supercritical drying process causes the relatively high thermal conductivity and low mechanical property of cellulose and its derivatives aerogels. Considering the pearl-necklace-like skeleton network of silica aerogels, which can improve thermal insulation property and mechanical property. Herein, we propose a new strategy for fabricating cellulose diacetate aerogels (CDAAs) with pearl-necklace-like skeletons by using tert-butanol (TBA) as exchange solvent after experiencing the freezing-drying course. CDAAs obtained have the low density of 0.09 g cm−3, the nanopore size in the range of 10–40 nm, the low thermal conductivity of 0.024 W m−1 K−1 at ambient conditions, and the excellent mechanical properties (0.18 MPa at 3% strain, 0.38 MPa at 5% strain). Ultimately, CDAAs with moderate mechanical property paralleled to cellulose-derived aerogels obtained from supercritical drying process are produced, only simultaneously owning the radial shrinkage of 6.2%. The facile method for fabricating CDAAs could provide a new reference for constructing cellulose/cellulose-derived aerogels and other biomass aerogels

Integrating Landscape Pattern into Characterising and Optimising Ecosystem Services for Regional Sustainable Development

Humans benefit from ecosystem services (ES) and profoundly influence the ecosystem in rapid urbanisation and large-scale urban sprawl contexts, especially at the landscape level. However, the impacts of landscape pattern, the driving mechanism of sub-ES and the spatially explicit regional optimisation, have been largely ignored. In response, to the present paper explores two primary aspects: the relationship among ES, landscape pattern, urban income and agricultural output, and the regional governance of optimised ES values (ESV), using the Wuhan urban agglomeration as a case study area. The survey method is employed in obtaining the adjusted magnitude matrix of land use and ecosystem services. Spatial regression analyses are conducted on each ES, including food provision, climate regulation and soil maintenance, with socio-economic indicators and landscape pattern index as explanatory variables. Finally, geographically weighted regression and scenario analyses are conducted on each sub-ESV to generate adjusted coefficients in each county for ESV regulation. The results show that urban per capita disposable income and agricultural output significantly contribute to ESV change, with the former being negative and the latter being positive. A highly aggregated landscape also produces reduced ESV, particularly in soil maintenance and gas and climate regulation. We summarise the ESV in 2020 and in the period after adjustment in different administrative counties. Provision, regulation and culture ecosystem benefits substantially increase when attempts are made to lower the landscape aggregation pattern by 1%. In general, counties and county-level cities have the largest ESV, with food provision as the optimum ecosystem benefit. Districts in the capital city show an immense growth in provision and regulation, and county-level cities show the highest growth rate in cultural service. Integrating the landscape pattern into characterising and optimising ES, provides references for regional governance on land-use planning and socio-economic development, which is vital to sustainable regional development

Visual Tracking Using Strong Classifier and Structural Local Sparse Descriptors

Sparse coding methods have achieved great success in visual tracking, and we present a strong classifier and structural local sparse descriptors for robust visual tracking. Since the summary features considering the sparse codes are sensitive to occlusion and other interfering factors, we extract local sparse descriptors from a fraction of all patches by performing a pooling operation. The collection of local sparse descriptors is combined into a boosting-based strong classifier for robust visual tracking using a discriminative appearance model. Furthermore, a structural reconstruction error based weight computation method is proposed to adjust the classification score of each candidate for more precise tracking results. To handle appearance changes during tracking, we present an occlusion-aware template update scheme. Comprehensive experimental comparisons with the state-of-the-art algorithms demonstrated the better performance of the proposed method