Urban green space has been considered as an ecological measure to mitigate urban heat islands (UHI). However, few studies investigate the cooling effect of the adjacent area of the urban park; as the transition region from a green space to a hardened surface where more complex heat exchange occurs, it deserves to be paid more attention. This paper examines the relationship between the urban greening patterns and the cooling effect in the surrounding areas of the Olympic Forest Park in Beijing. Results showed that the forestland and waterbodies could cool 6.51% and 12.82% of the impervious surface temperatures, respectively. For every 10% increase in the green space ratio, the land surface temperature drops by 0.4°C, and per kilometer increase in the distance from the forest park, the land surface temperature increases by 0.15 °C. The aggregation index (AI) and largest patch index (LPI) of the green space patterns presented a strong negative correlation with surface temperature. This study confirms the cooling effects in the adjacent area of the urban park and highlights their dependence on urban greening patterns. Therefore, we should not only develop more green spaces but also scientifically plan their spatial configuration in the limited urban land for the improvement of the cooling effect.

The cooling effect of green spaces as an ecological solution to mitigate urban climate change is well documented. However, the factors influencing the microclimate in the built environment around forest parks, diurnal variations of their impact and their degree of importance have not been explicitly addressed. We attempted to quantify how much various landscape parameters, including land cover and spatial location, impact the ambient air and surface temperature in the area around Beijing’s Olympic Forest Park. Data were taken along strategically located traverses inside and outside the park. We found: (1) The air temperature during the day was 1.0–3.5 °C lower in the park than in the surrounding area; the surface temperature was 1.7–4.8 °C lower; air humidity in the park increased by 8.7–15.1%; and the human comfort index reduced to 1.8–6.9, all generating a more comfortable thermal environment in the park than in the surrounding area. (2) The distance to the park and the green space ratio of the park’s surrounding area are significant factors for regulating its microclimate. A 1 km increase in distance to the park caused the temperature to increase by 0.83 °C; when the green space ratio increased by 10%, the temperature dropped by 0.16 °C on average. The impact of these two parameters was more obvious in the afternoon than in the middle of the day or in the morning. The green space ratio could be used for designing a more stable thermal environment. (3) Land cover affects surface temperature more than it does air temperature. Our data suggest that an urban plan with an even distribution of green space would provide the greatest thermal comfort.

In this study, 39 sediment samples were collected from Qilian Island, Iltis Bank, and Yongxing Island in Xuande Atoll in the South China Sea (SCS), and the microbial community structures and distribution were analyzed. The microbial community was influenced by both natural environmental factors and human activities. The abundance of genera Vibrio and Pseudoalteromonas, which are associated with pathogenicity and pollutant degradation, were significantly higher in Qilian Island than in Yongxing Island and Iltis Bank, suggesting possible contamination of Qilian Island area through human activities. Pathogenic or typical pollutants-degrading bacteria were found to be negatively correlated with most of the commonly occurring bacterial populations in marine sediment, and these bacteria were more likely to appear in the sediment of deep water layer. This co-occurrence pattern may be due to bacterial adaptation to environmental changes such as depth and contaminations from human activities, including garbage disposal, farming, and oil spills from ships. The findings of this study could help in understanding the potential influences of human activities on the ecosystem at the microbial level.

Habitat quality has been widely used as an important indicator in the evaluation of regional ecological security and ecosystem services. Previous studies have focused on the influences of urbanization on habitat quality, but the protection measures about how to respond to the dynamic changes of habitat quality patterns are still unclear. This study investigated the habitat quality in the metropolitan region of China (Shanghai) by using InVEST model, and analyzed its dynamic changes from 2000 to 2017 for the sake of providing different protection objects and measures for Shanghai. The results showed that the habitat quality index (HQI) in 2017 was 0.42, and the accumulated area percentages of less than 0.4 in HQI reached 46%, whereas the habitat quality in Chongming district was the highest. The HQI and habitat protected index (HPI) showed an obvious decline tendency from suburban area to downtown area. The HQI in Shanghai gradually declined from 0.56 in 2000 to 0.42 in 2017, and the deterioration area in habitat quality nearly covered 33% between 2000 and 2017. Additionally, the area proportion of the median habitat quality (0.4 < HQI ≤ 0.6) drastically dropped, but the areas of the low (HQI ≤ 0.2) and the high (HQI > 0.8) in habitat simultaneously expanded. Therefore, the valuable habitat in the western and southern coastal wetlands, Dianshan lake and Chongming district in Shanghai should be strictly protected, which covered 30% of the metropolitan area in Shanghai, and about 17% of the region located in the inner coastal zones and northern of Chongming Island was in urgent need of habitat restoration. Our results provide vital references for the maintenance and sustainable management of urban habitats in the metropolitan region.