This study researched the individual and combined impacts of future LULC and climate changes on water balance in the upper reaches of the Beiluo River basin on the Loess Plateau of China, using the scenarios of RCP4.5 and 8.5 of the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The climate data indicated that both precipitation and temperature increased at seasonal and annual scales from 2020 to 2050 under RCP4.5 and 8.5 scenarios. The future land use changes were predicted through the CA-Markov model. The land use predictions of 2025, 2035, and 2045 indicated rising forest areas with decreased agricultural land and grassland. In this study, three scenarios including only LULC change, only climate change, and combined climate and LULC change were established. The SWAT model was calibrated, validated, and used to simulate the water balance under the three scenarios. The results showed that increased rainfall and temperature may lead to increased runoff, water yield, and ET in spring, summer, and autumn and to decreased runoff, water yield, and ET in winter from 2020 to 2050. However, LULC change, compared with climate change, may have a smaller impact on the water balance. On an annual scale, runoff and water yield may gradually decrease, but ET may increase. The combined effects of both LULC and climate changes on water balance in the future were similar to the variation trend of climate changes alone at both annual and seasonal scales. The results obtained in this study provide further insight into the availability of future streamflow and can aid in water resource management planning in the study area.

Understanding changes in habitat quality and the driving forces of these changes at landscape scales is a critical part of effective ecosystem management. The present study investigated spatiotemporal habitat quality dynamics and related driving forces from 2005 to 2015 in the upper basin of Miyun Reservoir in North China by constructing an effective framework integrated InVEST and binary logistic regression models. This framework expanded the driving force analysis into an assessment of changes in habitat quality and intuitively verified the effectiveness of relevant environmental policies. The proposed method of combining the equidistant random sampling method and the method of introducing spatial lag variables in logistic regression equation can effectively solve spatial autocorrelation with a large enough number of sampling points. Overall, habitat quality improved during the study period. Spatially, a concentrated loss of habitat occurred in the southeastern part of the basin between the reservoir and mountainous areas, while other areas gradually recovered. Driving force analysis showed that lower elevation mountain land, gentle slopes, locations near rural land or roads, larger areas of grain cultivation, and areas with little population change had a higher likelihood of having changed in habitat quality in the upper basin of Miyun Reservoir. These results suggested that the present policy of protecting the ecosystem had a positive effect on improving habitat quality. In the future, the human activity management related to habitat quality needs to be strengthened. The present study would provide a reference for land use policy formulation and biodiversity conservation.

Rapid urbanization has intensified ecological problems such as landscape fragmentation and biodiversity decline, underscoring the need to maintain regional ecological integrity. The construction of ecological security patterns and the optimization of ecological restoration areas are crucial for addressing these ecological issues. However, research on how to couple ecological security patterns with ecological risk assessment to scientifically identify priority areas for ecological restoration and guide spatially targeted restoration remains insufficient. To address this gap, we investigated Liaoning Province by integrating morphological spatial pattern analysis, landscape connectivity assessment, and ecosystem service hotspot analysis to identify ecological sources. We then applied the minimum cumulative resistance model and circuit theory to extract ecological corridors, constructing a comprehensive ecological security pattern. Integrating landscape ecological risk assessment with ecological security patterns established a conservation and restoration-oriented ecological security framework. The results show that the ecological security pattern comprises 40 ecological source patches and 89 potential ecological corridors. Ecological sources encompass a total of 17,628 km² (approximately 12% of the province), primarily comprising water bodies, grasslands, shrublands, and forests. The ecological corridors span a total of 3533.9 km, with an average length of 39.7 km. We also identified 139 ecological pinch points and 109 ecological barrier points. Integrating these findings with landscape ecological risk zoning delineates ecological restoration zones, revealing a spatial pattern characterized by east–west differentiation and north–south continuity. This ecological conservation and restoration network provides a clear spatial guide and a robust scientific foundation for territorial spatial planning, ecological conservation, and restoration efforts.

Coastal wetlands are increasingly threatened by salinization and habitat degradation, which limit the natural regeneration of native halophytes. Suaeda heteroptera, an important halophytic species in temperate coastal wetlands, plays a critical role in vegetation restoration; however, its population recovery is constrained by limited seedling establishment. This study investigated the effects of seed heteromorphism, chemical priming, and environmental factors on the germination performance of S. heteroptera to provide insights for sustainable coastal wetland restoration. Two heteromorphic seed types of S. heteroptera were evaluated under potassium permanganate (KMnO₄), gibberellin (GA), and different salinity, temperature, and photoperiod conditions. The results revealed distinct germination strategies between seed types: Type B seeds showed faster germination initiation and higher early germination performance, whereas Type A seeds exhibited delayed germination characteristics, indicating differences in regeneration strategies between the two seed morphotypes. Both KMnO₄ and GA showed concentration-dependent effects, with low concentrations promoting germination and excessive concentrations inhibiting germination. Orthogonal analysis indicated that temperature had the greatest relative influence on germination, followed by salinity and photoperiod conditions. Within the tested experimental range, the optimal germination performance was observed under 10‰ salinity, 10 °C, and 24 h light exposure. These findings demonstrate that seed heteromorphism provides complementary regeneration strategies for S. heteroptera and that integrating chemical priming with environmental regulation may provide useful insights for coastal wetland restoration.

During urbanization, human activities have induced significant transformations in land use, leading to a huge imbalance in economic growth and nature development, posing severe threats to ecosystems. How to construct a stable and continuous ecological security pattern (ESP) in vulnerable areas like the Liaohe River Basin in Liaoning section has become a crucial challenge for regional management while facing the constraints of habitat fragmentation and the loss of landscape connectivity on sustainable development. Most research on ESP mainly relies on current situation or single scenario predictions, this study developed a “current assessment-future prediction-pattern optimization” framework. By simulating and comparing four distinct policy-oriented scenarios for 2030—Natural Development (ND), Cropland Protection (CP), Ecological Protection (EP), and Ecosystem-Service-Importance-Based Sustainable Development (ESIS)—this study aims to: (1) reveal the differentiated impacts of various policy orientations on future land use patterns; (2) compare the spatial evolution of ecological sources, resistance surfaces, ecological corridors, and key nodes between 2020 and under each 2030 scenario; and (3) synthesize an optimized ESP. This ESP is designed to balance economic and ecological needs, ultimately providing a scientific basis for watershed management. Furthermore, based on the simulation results, we propose a spatially explicit and adaptive management strategy termed the “one ribbon, two zones” pattern to guide the implementation of the optimized ESP within the basin.

Currently, the degradation of global ecosystem services and the decline in biodiversity are pressing issues, and the conflict between ecological conservation and economic development in old industrial bases is intensifying. This study takes Liaoning Province, which exhibits a distinct ecological gradient, as its research area. By constructing a three-tier nested framework at the grid, county, and city levels, and combining spatial autocorrelation, GWR, SOM, and XGBoost-SHAP models, we assess the spatial differentiation, trade-offs and synergies, and multi-scale driving associations of five core ecosystem services. The results indicate that: ① ecosystem services exhibit a pattern characterized by “mountains in the east, water in the west, and a granary in the center, Wet mountains in the east, dry hills in the west, granary plains in the central region” with the intensity of spatial aggregation decreasing as the scale increases; ② food provisioning and regulating support services remain in a trade-off relationship, and service bundles shift from locally fine-grained differentiation to city-level functional aggregation; ③ riving associations exhibit significant scale-dependent differentiation, with factors exhibiting nonlinear thresholds and interactions. This study establishes a multi-scale analytical framework for ecosystem services in old industrial bases, providing a foundation for regional ecological restoration and coordinated development.