Land use change is one of the important aspects of the regional ecological restoration research. With remote sensing (RS) image in 2003, 2007 and 2012, using geographic information system (GIS) technologies, the land use pattern changes in Yimeng Mountain ecological restoration area in China and its driving force factors were studied. Results showed that: (1) Cultivated land constituted the largest area during 10 years and followed by forest land and grass land; cultivated land and unused land were reduced by 28.43% and 44.32%, whereas forest land, water area and land for water facilities and others were increased. (2) During 2003–2007, forest land change showed the largest, followed by unused land and grass land; however, during 2008–2012, water area and land for water facilities change showed the largest, followed by grass land and unused land. (3) Land use degree was above the average level, it was in the developing period during 2003–2007 and in the degenerating period during 2008–2012. (4) Ecological Restoration Projects can greatly change the micro topography, increase vegetation coverage and then induce significant changes in the land use distribution, which were the main driving force factors of the land use pattern change in the ecological restoration area.

China's Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP) is aimed at improving the fragile and unstable ecological environment and has become one of the largest ecological restoration programs in the world because of its enormous investment and effects. It is important to work out and strengthen new measures to overcome difficulties to promote more ecosystem services and human well‐being in the NFCP. This study focused on how to evaluate the ecosystem services change brought about by implementing the NFCP. Taking the key state‐owned forest areas in the Northeast and Inner Mongolia as the study area, we provide a basic overview of development and construct an evaluation index system and a distributed calculation method for the NFCP to analyze the implications of the NFCP on ecosystem services combined with multi‐source data coupling. An evaluation index system for NFCP ecosystem services was constructed. The system includes five ecological service functions and 12 evaluation indices. The trade‐off and/or synergistic analysis of ecosystem services were carried out. The regional characteristics and changes in the NFCP ecosystem services were emphasized. Although it has not been implemented for a long time, the NFCP has had a great impact on ecosystem services because it reduces soil and water losses, increases soil fertility, strengthens the forest carbon sink and helped the forest accumulate nutrients and purify the atmosphere. Socioeconomic factors affect the NFCP ecosystem services, such as the implementation area of NFCP, investment amount of NFCP, area ratio of nature reserves, and yield of tree stock volume. Policy drivers of the NFCP, changes in the economic structure and reductions in forest yield are the main factors affecting the change in NFCP ecosystem services. Although the NFCP has positively affected the society, the economy, and the ecological environment, it has also generated some problems, such as the improper management of forest resources, shortage of capital investment, staff transfer, etc. The social and economic problems will be transient with implementation of the NFCP, and the structural changes in forestry and agriculture may eventually benefit the forestry workers and other stakeholders.

The spatial variability of soil organic carbon (SOC) and total nitrogen (STN) levels is important in both global carbon-nitrogen cycle and climate change research. There has been little research on the spatial distribution of SOC and STN at the watershed scale based on geographic information systems (GIS) and geostatistics. Ninety-seven soil samples taken at depths of 0–20 cm were collected during October 2010 and 2011 from the Matiyu small watershed (4.2 km²) of a hilly area in Shandong Province, northern China. The impacts of different land use types, elevation, vegetation coverage and other factors on SOC and STN spatial distributions were examined using GIS and a geostatistical method, regression-kriging. The results show that the concentration variations of SOC and STN in the Matiyu small watershed were moderate variation based on the mean, median, minimum and maximum, and the coefficients of variation (CV). Residual values of SOC and STN had moderate spatial autocorrelations, and the Nugget/Sill were 0.2% and 0.1%, respectively. Distribution maps of regression-kriging revealed that both SOC and STN concentrations in the Matiyu watershed decreased from southeast to northwest. This result was similar to the watershed DEM trend and significantly correlated with land use type, elevation and aspect. SOC and STN predictions with the regression-kriging method were more accurate than those obtained using ordinary kriging. This research indicates that geostatistical characteristics of SOC and STN concentrations in the watershed were closely related to both land-use type and spatial topographic structure and that regression-kriging is suitable for investigating the spatial distributions of SOC and STN in the complex topography of the watershed.