Article
Ecology
Abigail Kaminski, Dana Marie Bauer, Kathleen P. Bell, Cynthia S. Loftin, Erik J. Nelson
Summary: Urban-rural gradients are useful for examining the impact of human disturbances on ecological and social systems, with an integrated approach utilizing multiple landscape pattern metrics showing promise in defining more accurate gradient typologies. The outcome of cluster-based typologies differs significantly from rule-based typologies, highlighting the importance of considering landscape patterns in urban-rural gradient studies for effective resource management and conservation decisions. Future studies should consider more robust classification approaches to improve the accuracy of urban-rural gradient typologies.
Article
Forestry
Song Liu, Xinsu Zhang, Yongjiu Feng, Huan Xie, Li Jiang, Zhenkun Lei
Summary: Shanghai has experienced rapid urbanization in the past three decades, leading to a decrease in green space from 84.8% in 1990 to 61.9% in 2015, and an increase in built-up areas from 15.0% to 36.5%. Farmland was the most affected green space sub-type, being encroached and fragmented by urban sprawl. The results indicated that green space in Shanghai became increasingly fragmented and isolated over the past 25 years.
Article
Ecology
Maurizio Fraissinet, Leonardo Ancillotto, Antonello Migliozzi, Silvia Capasso, Luciano Bosso, Dan E. Chamberlain, Danilo Russo
Summary: This study utilized longitudinal bird monitoring data to analyze the occurrence trends of urban birds in Naples. The species richness of breeding birds remained stable over time, but there were changes in the composition of bird species associated with different types of land cover.
Article
Environmental Studies
Waselin Salomon, Yannick Useni Sikuzani, Kouagou Raoul Sambieni, Akoua Tamia Madeleine Kouakou, Yao Sadaiou Sabas Barima, Jean Marie Theodat, Jan Bogaert
Summary: The landscape of the Port-au-Prince agglomeration in Haiti has experienced significant changes due to urban expansion and rapid population growth. The urban and peri-urban areas have seen an increase in built-up and bare land, while the rural area has decreased. This has been accompanied by a decline in vegetation in the peri-urban zone. The lack of territorial development planning by public authorities has contributed to these changes.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yi Yang, Shen Guangrong, Zhang Chen, Sun Hao, Zhang Zhouyiling, Yin Shan
Summary: Urbanization leads to significant land use/land cover changes and increases urban heat island effect. This study analyzes the spatial distribution patterns of land use/land cover changes and surface urban heat island intensity, as well as the relationship between impervious surface and vegetation coverage and urban heat island intensity. The future land cover and land surface temperature in Shanghai are predicted under different development scenarios. The results show that the ecological space protection model can effectively reduce the urban heat island effect.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2022)
Article
Environmental Studies
Sonali Sharma, Pawan Kumar Joshi, Christine Fuerst
Summary: The Western Himalaya is experiencing rapid urbanization, which has significant impacts on ecological processes and human well-being. This study analyzes the land use/land cover and landscape pattern dynamics in response to urban growth in Dharamsala and Pithoragarh, Western Himalaya, over the past two decades. The results show that both cities have experienced significant changes in land use, with urban development leading to cropland and vegetation loss. The landscape pattern analysis reveals aggregation and homogenization at the city level, and disaggregation, fragmentation, and heterogeneity in the outer zone.
Article
Urban Studies
Kaixin Li, Yiyu Li, Xinyi Yang, Xiaoshuang Liu, Qingxu Huang
Summary: This study analyzed the urban-rural gradients of 3D morphologies of buildings in 91 cities in China. The results showed that most areas had buildings with an average height ranging from 9 m to 16 m, and building coverage ranged from 20 % to 60 %. Hierarchical clustering analysis identified 9 patterns of morphology gradients, with average height and building coverage decreasing with distance. This study provides a methodological framework for quantitatively analyzing the urban-rural gradient of 3D morphologies of urban buildings and can inform efforts to mitigate city-scale climate issues.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Zhitao Feng, Zhenhuan Liu, Yi Zhou
Summary: Urbanization has both direct and indirect effects on vegetation growth. This study focused on the impact of thermal environmental changes caused by urbanization on vegetation growth and found a significant exponential relationship between warming and the growth of large-scale vegetation. Thermal environmental factors were identified as the main contributors to this relationship.
Article
Engineering, Civil
Zhuoran Luo, Jiahong Liu, Yongxiang Zhang, Jinjun Zhou, Yingdong Yu, Ruitao Jia
Summary: Evapotranspiration plays a crucial role in connecting land surface hydrological processes with the atmosphere, impacting regional water cycles and water balance. Urbanization has been shown to affect the hydrological balance, leading to urban wet and dry island effects. The study compared humidity levels in urban areas in China before and after rapid urbanization, and found that cold and dry urban areas tended to have wet island effects, while warm and humid urban areas had dry island effects. Coastal cities were exceptions, remaining dry islands throughout the year. Despite an overall trend towards increased dry island intensity, absolute humidity generally increased, especially during winter with some regions in northern China experiencing up to 8%-16% increases, attributed to intensifying urban heat island effects. These results provide valuable insights into understanding the drivers and mechanisms of dry/wet island effects in urban areas.
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY
(2021)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Fangkai Zhao, Lei Yang, Jianfeng Tang, Li Fang, Xinwei Yu, Min Li, Liding Chen
Summary: This study investigated the effects of urbanization and land-use intensity on antibiotic contamination in soil and found that urbanization level plays a crucial role in determining the concentration and seasonality of antibiotics. Furthermore, the interactions between urbanization and land-use explained a large portion of the variation in antibiotic concentrations across urbanization gradients.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Zhenhuan Liu, Yi Zhou, Zhitao Feng
Summary: This study comprehensively analyzed the response of vegetation phenology to urbanization in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GHM-GBA) from a dynamic urban-rural gradient perspective. The results showed distinct spatiotemporal differences in the response of vegetation phenology to urbanization level across the urban-rural gradient. Urbanization advanced the start-of-season (SOS) and end-of-season (EOS), while not extending the growing season length. The phenological shift in the urban-rural gradient was more significant than that over time due to land surface warming under different urbanization levels. These quantitative findings are important for understanding the impact of urbanization on vegetation phenology and predicting future changes.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Green & Sustainable Science & Technology
Yanyan Wei, Chi-Yung Jim, Jun Gao, Min Zhao
Summary: The carbon storage of urban woody vegetation is crucial for mitigating climate change. Biomass structure and species composition are important factors determining carbon storage in woody vegetation. This study estimated the aboveground carbon storage of urban woody vegetation in different urbanization levels using allometric equations and evaluated the influence of species diversity, canopy cover, species evenness, and tree density using a random forest model. The results showed that these factors vary with urbanization and urban-rural environment, and tree density was found to be the most important contributor to aboveground carbon storage.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Shan Li, Qiang Li, Jiahua Zhang, Shichao Zhang, Xue Wang, Shanshan Yang, Sha Zhang
Summary: Understanding variations in vegetation phenology is crucial for adapting to climate change and urbanization. However, there has been limited research on phenology in urban areas. This study focuses on Jinan city, China, using a local climate zone approach to investigate spatial and temporal variations in vegetation phenology. The results show that vegetation phenology in the study area generally exhibited advance, delay, and extension trends.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Jinyan Dong, Baojie Li, Yan Li, Rui Zhou, Cong Gan, Yongqi Zhao, Rui Liu, Yating Yang, Teng Wang, Hong Liao
Summary: In recent years, there has been an increase in atmospheric ammonia (NH3) concentrations in China. This study analyzed the spatiotemporal distribution, urban-rural gradient, and contributing factors (meteorology, social, atmospheric acid gases, and NH3 emissions) of NH3 in China from 2008 to 2019 using satellite observations. The results showed a significant increase in NH3 concentrations, with the highest levels in the North China Plain. The NH3 concentrations were higher in urban areas compared to rural areas, and the gap between urban and rural NH3 concentrations was widening. Atmospheric acid gases were identified as the main factor contributing to the increase in NH3 concentrations.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Article
Environmental Studies
Susan Cyriac, Firoz C. Mohammed
Summary: Kerala State in India has a unique Rural-Urban Continuum (RUC) settlement pattern. While it is difficult to distinguish between urban and rural settlements, the existing dichotomous classification forms the basis of spatial planning, governance, and management. However, the current situation has resulted in the spread of urban characterized settlements towards environmentally fragile areas. Despite several discussions about the RUC nature of settlements, detailed information about the spatial characteristics of Kerala is missing in the literature.
Article
Environmental Sciences
Muhammad Rizwan, Xin Li, Yingying Chen, Lubna Anjum, Shanawar Hamid, Muhammad Yamin, Junaid Nawaz Chauhdary, Muhammad Adnan Shahid, Qaisar Mehmood
Summary: Pakistan experiences extreme flood events almost every year during the monsoon season, and recently these events have become more disastrous due to increased frequency and magnitude caused by climate change. Therefore, the simulation of stream flows using climate models is crucial for assessing floods and managing water resources effectively.
JOURNAL OF FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT
(2023)
Article
Geography, Physical
Yanzhao Zhou, Youhua Ran, Xin Li
Summary: This study investigates the mechanisms of surface warming over the Tibetan Plateau (TP) and finds that lower elevation areas exhibit enhanced high-elevation surface temperature increases, while higher elevation areas experience reduced increases. The results show that atmospheric factors, such as cloud-radiation feedback and evapotranspiration processes, are the main mechanisms controlling elevation-dependent surface warming in summer, while snow/ice albedo feedback and downward longwave radiation sensitivity to humidity play significant roles in winter.
GLOBAL AND PLANETARY CHANGE
(2023)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Wenjun Tang, Shan Xu, Xu Zhou, Kun Yang, Yang Wang, Jun Qin, Haikun Wang, Xin Li
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Miao Zhang, Yanzhao Zhou, Xin Li, Ziyong Sun, Guoqing Yang, Zhenghui Xie
Summary: In this study, two sets of 40-year continuous simulations were conducted to distinguish the effects of regional human activities and global climate change on the climate of arid Central Asia. The results showed that regional human activities contributed significantly to changes in precipitation, while global climate change had a larger impact on temperature and humidity. Irrigation had the greatest influence on local temperature/humidity and precipitation in the upstream mountainous area, while the increase in green vegetation was the key factor affecting the regional climate.
JOURNAL OF GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH-ATMOSPHERES
(2023)
Article
Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences
Changhui Zhan, Yingying Chen, Kun Yang, Lazhu, Xu Zhou, Yaozhi Jiang, Xiaoyan Ling, Jiaxin Tian, Yan Wang, Xin Li, Hua Yang
Summary: This study evaluates the performance of four Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM)-Era precipitation products on the western Tibetan Plateau (WTP). The results show that the calibration of satellite products has a significant effect on their performance. The GSMaP-Gauge, calibrated with daily data, outperforms the IMERG-C, calibrated with monthly data, on both monthly and daily scales. However, the calibration does not improve the reproduction of precipitation amount on the WTP, and none of the four products can accurately capture the hourly precipitation frequency-intensity structure.
ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yanlong Guo, Zefang Zhao, Shiwei Yuan, Xin Li
Summary: Through a comprehensive habitat suitability model, we assessed potential distribution area changes for 42 key woody species on the Loess Plateau under different scenarios, and explored the response of regional woody species diversity to future global warming. The results showed that moderate warming will promote the expansion of potential distribution areas and increase regional species diversity, resulting in a greener plateau. Shrub species are more drought-tolerant and less affected by climate change, making them a priority for vegetation restoration, especially in the arid areas of the northern plateau.
ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH LETTERS
(2023)
Article
Engineering, Mechanical
Feng Liu, Xiaowei Nie, Adan Wu, Zebin Zhao, Chunfeng Ma, Lijin Ning, Yajie Zhu, Liangxu Wang, Xuejun Guo, Xin Li
Summary: Assimilating the latest epidemic data can improve predictions of epidemic dynamics but capturing nonlinear spatiotemporal heterogeneity is still challenging.
NONLINEAR DYNAMICS
(2023)
Editorial Material
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Xin Li
Article
Engineering, Civil
Yingying Yao, Yufeng Zhao, Xin Li, Dapeng Feng, Chaopeng Shen, Chuankun Liu, Xingxing Kuang, Chunmiao Zheng
Summary: The study shows that using deep learning technology for hydrological predictions in the regions around the Tibetan Plateau can effectively improve the accuracy of flow predictions. For DL models, the influence of flow data with different temporal resolutions on predictions is minimal, and the model's performance depends on the number of flow observations and the hydrological characteristics of the catchment. Climate forcing data are the main determining factor for flow prediction performance, while other factors have less significant impacts.
JOURNAL OF HYDROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Xiaojing Bai, Donghai Zheng, Xin Li, Jean-Pierre Wigneron, Rogier van der Velde, Pei Zhang, Zhongbo Su
Summary: Passive microwave observation is capable of providing comprehensive information of land surface properties. This study contributes to the simulation of land surface emission and estimation of vegetation optical depth at multiple frequencies using a discrete scattering model. The results show the feasibility of using an identical physically-based model to simulate multi-frequency land emission and the potential for improving model of land emission and retrievals of soil moisture and vegetation optical depth based on multi-frequency satellite observations.
REMOTE SENSING OF ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
Review
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Jianbin Su, Duxin Chen, Donghai Zheng, Yang Su, Xin Li
Summary: The utilization of big Earth data has provided unprecedented insights into the planet we inhabit, and unraveling the concealed causal connections within intricate data is of paramount importance for a profound comprehension of the Earth system. Traditional correlation and regression methods are inadequate for addressing causation related problems, but advancements in causal theory and inference methods have demonstrated vigorous vitality in various research directions in the Earth system, such as regularities revealing, processes understanding, hypothesis testing, and physical models improving.
SCIENCE CHINA-EARTH SCIENCES
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Xuewei Fan, Chiyuan Miao, Jakob Zscheischler, Louise Slater, Yi Wu, Yuanfang Chai, Amir Aghakouchak
Summary: Fire weather compounded by extremely hot and dry conditions has severe impacts on society and ecosystems. A study finds that the frequency and intensity of compound fire weather (CFW) events have increased globally from 1981 to 2020. Temperature increase and relative humidity decrease are responsible for significant trends in CFW events, with anthropogenic climate change aggravating these trends.
Article
Environmental Studies
Wenfei Luan, Ge Li, Bo Zhong, Jianwei Geng, Xin Li, Hui Li, Shi He
Summary: To improve the classification accuracy of urban land in dryland cities, this study trained a convolutional neural network (CNN) model for seven dryland cities based on rigorous training sample selection. The assessment showed that our proposed model achieved higher overall accuracy (92.63%) than several emerging land cover products. Furthermore, the classification accuracy of the dominant land types in the CNN-classified data exceeded the selected products. This finding demonstrates the promising potential of our proposed architecture in improving dryland urban land classification accuracy and compensating for the deficiency of large-scale land cover mapping.
Article
Geosciences, Multidisciplinary
Lei Guo, Jia Li, Amaury Dehecq, Zhiwei Li, Xin Li, Jianjun Zhu
Summary: This study establishes a new inventory of surging glaciers in High Mountain Asia based on glacier surface elevation changes and morphological changes. The inventory reveals that surging glaciers account for 2.49% and 16.59% of the total glacier number and glacier area in High Mountain Asia, respectively. Surging glaciers are unevenly distributed in High Mountain Asia, with more frequent occurrences in the northwestern regions and fewer in the peripheral regions. Surging activity is more likely to occur in larger glaciers with longer length and wider elevation range, and surging glaciers often have steeper slopes compared to non-surging glaciers.
EARTH SYSTEM SCIENCE DATA
(2023)
Article
Environmental Sciences
Yang Su, Youhua Ran, Guoqing Zhang, Xin Li
Summary: This study utilized remote sensing data to analyze the changes in lake surface area in permafrost regions. The results show an overall increase in lake area, but also indicate that seasonal lake area can both increase and decrease. These changes are most pronounced in low-lying areas, high-density lake regions, and warm permafrost regions, suggesting the significance of thawing or disappearance of permafrost in driving lake changes.
SCIENCE OF THE TOTAL ENVIRONMENT
(2023)
