Located in an important biodiversity conservation area in the Yangtze River Delta, the habitats of many species have been severely eroded because of human activities such as tourism development. There is no relevant species conservation plan in place in the region, and scientific guidance on ecosystem change and corridor construction is urgently needed. In this study, we first assess ecosystem service functions based on the InVEST model; then, we assess ecological sensitivity and identify landscape resistance surfaces by constructing ecosystem sensitivity indicators; finally, we construct ecological security patterns by combining landscape resistance surfaces and circuit theory identification. The main results are as follows: (1) The high value area of ecosystem services is located in the southwest, while the northeast part of the study area has lower ecosystem services, and there is a trade-off between the ecosystem services in the study area. (2) There are 38 ecological sources in southern Anhui, with a total area of more than 5742.79 km², that are the basic guarantees of ecological security, mainly located in the northeast of the study area, and woodland and grassland are the most important components, accounting for 18.4% of the total study area. (3) The ecological security pattern in the study area consists of 63 ecological sources, 37 important corridors, and 26 potential corridors, of which there are 28 pinch point areas and 6 barrier point patches in the study area, mainly located within Huangshan City and Xuancheng City. We recommend that when implementing restoration and rehabilitation measures in the future, policy makers should give priority to pinch points and barrier areas.

Human activities and climate change have profound impacts on the ecological environment of oases in Xinjiang, and it is of great significance to explore the spatial and temporal evolution patterns of ecological environment quality in this region for the sustainable development of Xinjiang. The remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) was extracted from the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform from 2000 to 2020, and the coefficient of variation and Hurst index were used to reveal the spatial and temporal characteristics and stability of the ecological environment quality of the artificial oasis and natural oasis in Xinjiang. The key factors affecting the ecological environment quality are explored through correlation analysis and geoprobes. The results show that the distribution of the ecological environment in Xinjiang oases is high in the north and low in the south, and the overall quality shows a fluctuating downward trend from 0.210 to 0.189. Artificial oases have higher RSEI values, stability, and sustainability than natural oases. The RSEI in the study area was mainly influenced by humidity, followed by greenness and heat, and dryness had the least influence on the RSEI model. Based on the geodetector, the top three highest contributors were found to be precipitation (PRE) (0.83) > relative humidity (RHU) (0.82) > evapotranspiration (ET) (0.57). Climate is the main factor affecting the ecological quality of oases, and the RSEI can be improved by increasing the proportion of artificial oases. The study aims to provide a scientific basis for the sustainable development of oases in arid zones.

Water and soil resources are the key elements required to maintain the stability and sustainable development of oases in inland drylands. This study takes oases in Xinjiang as an example, and reveals the spatial and temporal distribution characteristics of oases across Xinjiang, as well as the dynamic migration and transformation process of oases and the mutual influence of human activities on oasis resources, through a combination of land movement and attitude indicators, use of a gravity model, and Geodetector. The results show that: (1) the area containing the oases in the study has expanded, increasing by 24.0% between 1990 and 2020; (2) both artificial oases (AO) and natural oases (NO) were tilted in a northeast–southwest direction, with the center point of AOs moving slightly to the northeast, and the centripetal force and dispersion degree did not change significantly; the center point of NO moved significantly to the northeast, and the dispersion degree weakened, showing spatial convergence; (3) cultivated land and grassland were the main land types of oasis evolution, and their contribution to evolution was over 70%; and (4) the Geodetector results show that the three main factors driving the evolution of oases were vegetation cover, population density, and GDP. The research results have practical implications for land-use management planning and ecological environmental protection in arid zones.

Xinjiang is a typical continental arid climate zone and ecologically fragile zone. Drought has caused damage to the local social economy, agricultural production, and the ecological environment. However, the study of drought is more difficult due to the complex topography and the lack of monitoring information. In this paper, based on the meteorological data of 94 meteorological stations in Xinjiang from 1961 to 2020, we used the precipitation and potential evapotranspiration (ET₀) to calculate the aridity index (AI); the Mann–Kendall test, Morlet wavelet analysis, and Kriging interpolation were used to identify the trend, period, and spatial distribution. The results showed that (1) the average change rate of the precipitation in Xinjiang was 8.58 mm/10a, the average change rate of the ET₀ was −14.84 mm/10a, and the average change rate of the AI was −1.94/10a; (2) the periods of precipitation, ET₀, and AI in Xinjiang were 39, 29, and 14 years, respectively, and the abrupt changes occurred in 1986, 1971, and 1987, respectively; (3) The Moran index of precipitation and temperature are 0.41 and 0.33, respectively, indicating that precipitation and temperature in Xinjiang are positively correlated in spatial distribution and have spatial clustering characteristics; and the z-values are both greater than 2.58 (p < 0.01), indicating that the spatial autocorrelation of precipitation and temperature in Xinjiang is significant. This study can provide a reference for the diagnosis of the meteorological drought mechanism and the coping with climate change in Xinjiang.

Accurately identifying and predicting droughts can provide local managers with a basis for decision-making. The Xinyang region is prone to droughts and floods, which have a large impact on local agriculture and socio-economics. This paper employs precipitation data from the Xinyang region to provide a scientific basis for drought and flood control measures in this region. The data are first treated with standardized precipitation indices (SPIs) on three-month, six-month, and nine-month time scales. Subsequently, a Morlet wavelet analysis is performed for each of the three time scales analyzed for the SPI. The results show multiple time scales of drought and flood disasters in the Xinyang region. The cycles of drought and flood disasters in the Xinyang region show different fluctuations on different SPI scales. The SPI time series reflect a strong fluctuation period of 17a for drought and flood disasters in the Xinyang region. An analysis of the variance of the wavelet coefficients showed that the first main cycle of drought and flood disasters in the Xinyang region is 7a, and the second and third sub-cycles are 4a and 13a, respectively. We conclude that floods are more frequent than droughts in Xinyang and are more likely to occur from 2017 to 2021, with a subsequent shift to droughts. Local managers should put drought prevention measures in place to deal with droughts after 2021.

Water scarcity and ecological degradation in arid zones present significant challenges to regional ecological health. Despite this, integrating the water supply–demand balance and water supply security (SEC) into ecological health assessments—particularly through composite indicators—remains underexplored in arid regions. In this study, we assessed the ecological health changes in Xinjiang by utilizing multivariate remote sensing data, focusing on the balance between water supply and demand, the degree of SEC, and ecosystem resilience (ER). Our results indicate that while water supply and demand remained relatively stable in northern Xinjiang between 2000 and 2020, the conflict between supply and demand intensified in the southern and eastern agricultural regions. SEC evaluations revealed that 73.3% of the region experienced varying degrees of decline over the 20-year period. Additionally, ER assessments showed that 7.12% of the region exhibited a significant decline, with 78.6% experiencing overall reductions in ecological health. The indicators’ response to drought demonstrated that improvements in ecological health during wet conditions were less pronounced than declines during droughts. This study underscores the necessity of prioritizing areas with lower ecological health in future water allocation strategies to optimize water resource utilization.