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Dr. Shuqing Zhao
Peking University

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0 urban heat island
0 Urban Biodiversity
0 Urban Vegetation Growth and Phenology
0 Urban Carbon

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Urbanization
urban heat island
Urban Carbon
Urban-Rural Gradients

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Journal article
Published: 26 April 2021 in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres
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Urbanization, one of the most dramatic forms of land conversion, modifies local climatic environments and threatens human life and health. Here we use the space‐for‐time approach combined with satellite data to quantify the potential perturbation of surface energy balance and surface temperature (LST) caused by urbanization at global scale. We estimate that collectively +2.4, +0.9, +1.7 °C potential changes for annual daytime, nighttime, and mean LST could be triggered when land surface converted from natural area to urban use, due primarily to the decline of latent heat during months from April to October (‐23.9 – ‐3.2 W m‐2), and the reduced sensible heat and ground heat storage in other months (‐5.2 – ‐2.4 W m‐2). Urbanization perturbation to surface energy balance and temperature exhibit conspicuous spatial heterogeneity (i.e., varying with latitude and climate zones) and temporal asymmetries (i.e., diurnal and seasonal: strong in summer daytime and weak in winter nighttime). These spatial‐temporal variations are interrelated closely with local background climate‐vegetation regimes, as indicated by strong correlations between urbanization perturbation to surface biophysical effects and precipitation, temperature, vegetation index across regions and months. Our findings provide empirical evidence that biophysical mechanisms of urbanization need to be considered in predicting future trajectories of climate change and local susceptibility of surface energy balance should be accounted for when evaluating urbanization effects and mitigating urban heat.

ACS Style

Pengke Shen; Shuqing Zhao; Yongjing Ma. Perturbation of Urbanization to Earth's Surface Energy Balance. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 2021, 126, 1 .

AMA Style

Pengke Shen, Shuqing Zhao, Yongjing Ma. Perturbation of Urbanization to Earth's Surface Energy Balance. Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres. 2021; 126 (8):1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Pengke Shen; Shuqing Zhao; Yongjing Ma. 2021. "Perturbation of Urbanization to Earth's Surface Energy Balance." Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres 126, no. 8: 1.

Primary research article
Published: 28 March 2021 in Global Change Biology
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Rising temperature shifts plant phenology. Chinese cities, experiencing extensive expansion and intensive warming, spanning a wide latitudinal range, might provide ideal experimental opportunities for observing and predicting phenological responses to warming temperature. Using the urban–rural gradient approach, we explored urbanization imprint on land surface phenology across the entire urbanization intensity (UI) gradient ranging from 0% to 100% in 343 Chinese cities using the VIIRS Land Surface Phenology along with MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) products. We found prevalent advancing and delaying trends for the start of the growing season (SOS) and the end of the growing season (EOS) with increasing UI across 343 Chinese cities, respectively. Overall, the phenology shifted earlier by 8.6 ± 0.54 days for SOS, later by 1.3 ± 0.51 days for EOS, and lengthened by 9.9 ± 0.77 days for the growing season length (GSL) in urban core areas (UI above 50%) relative to their rural counterparts (UI lower than 1%). The temperature sensitivity of SOS and EOS was 10.5 ± 0.25 days earlier and 2.9 ± 0.16 days later per 1°C LST increase in spring and autumn, respectively. Moreover, the northern cities witnessed higher temperature sensitivity for SOS and EOS than the southern ones. Both spring and autumn temperature sensitivity across these 343 cities would likely decrease with future urban warming, suggesting any projections of future phenological responses to continued warming must be approached with caution.

ACS Style

Wenxiao Jia; Shuqing Zhao; Xiaoyang Zhang; Shuguang Liu; Geoffrey M. Henebry; Lingling Liu. Urbanization imprint on land surface phenology: The urban–rural gradient analysis for Chinese cities. Global Change Biology 2021, 27, 2895 -2904.

AMA Style

Wenxiao Jia, Shuqing Zhao, Xiaoyang Zhang, Shuguang Liu, Geoffrey M. Henebry, Lingling Liu. Urbanization imprint on land surface phenology: The urban–rural gradient analysis for Chinese cities. Global Change Biology. 2021; 27 (12):2895-2904.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wenxiao Jia; Shuqing Zhao; Xiaoyang Zhang; Shuguang Liu; Geoffrey M. Henebry; Lingling Liu. 2021. "Urbanization imprint on land surface phenology: The urban–rural gradient analysis for Chinese cities." Global Change Biology 27, no. 12: 2895-2904.

Article
Published: 26 February 2021 in Climatic Change
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Changes in land use, especially urbanization, alter the biophysical properties of Earth’s surface, which in turn affects local climate and even contributes to global warming. The observation minus reanalysis (OMR) approach has been widely applied to isolate the signal of surface forcing from observed temperature changes (which reflect all the sources of climate forcings, including surface effects), but bias in warming trends induced by surface change and estimation uncertainties still remain. Using the ensemble mean of eight temperature reanalysis datasets as background climate, along with in situ observations from 2353 meteorological stations, here we analyze the warming effects of land use changes in China between 1980 and 2015. Results show that OMR trends from land use changes collectively reached +0.100, +0.098, and +0.146 °C/decade for annual mean, maximum, and minimum temperature, contributing approximately 1/4 to 1/3 of overall observed warming trends, and stronger contributions were observed in the three largest urban agglomerations (i.e., Jing-Jin-Ji, the Yangtze River Delta, and the Pearl River Delta). The spatial distribution of OMR trends shows a great deal of heterogeneity that is closely related to impervious surface (positively) and vegetation cover (negatively). Warming trends induced by land use changes (including urbanization) present evident diurnal asymmetry (stronger for minimum than maximum) and vary with season (greater in winter/spring than in summer/autumn) and generally increase over time. Our results highlight that observed warming trends in China were likely influenced substantially by land use changes, especially in highly urbanized areas.

ACS Style

Pengke Shen; Shuqing Zhao. 1/4 to 1/3 of observed warming trends in China from 1980 to 2015 are attributed to land use changes. Climatic Change 2021, 164, 1 -19.

AMA Style

Pengke Shen, Shuqing Zhao. 1/4 to 1/3 of observed warming trends in China from 1980 to 2015 are attributed to land use changes. Climatic Change. 2021; 164 (3-4):1-19.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Pengke Shen; Shuqing Zhao. 2021. "1/4 to 1/3 of observed warming trends in China from 1980 to 2015 are attributed to land use changes." Climatic Change 164, no. 3-4: 1-19.

Editorial
Published: 16 February 2021 in Conservation
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We are pleased to launch the new peer-reviewed open access journal, Conservation, published by MDPI (Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute), which offers an exciting new opportunity to publish comprehensive reviews, original research articles, communications, case reports, letters, commentaries, and other perspectives related to the biological, sociological, ethical, economic, methodological, and other transdisciplinary dimensions of conservation

ACS Style

Antoni Margalida; Luca Luiselli; José Tella; Shuqing Zhao. Conservation: A New Open Access Journal for Rapid Dissemination of the Transdisciplinary Dimensions of Biodiversity Conservation. Conservation 2021, 1, 17 -20.

AMA Style

Antoni Margalida, Luca Luiselli, José Tella, Shuqing Zhao. Conservation: A New Open Access Journal for Rapid Dissemination of the Transdisciplinary Dimensions of Biodiversity Conservation. Conservation. 2021; 1 (1):17-20.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Antoni Margalida; Luca Luiselli; José Tella; Shuqing Zhao. 2021. "Conservation: A New Open Access Journal for Rapid Dissemination of the Transdisciplinary Dimensions of Biodiversity Conservation." Conservation 1, no. 1: 17-20.

Journal article
Published: 21 January 2021 in Urban Science
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Contemporary urbanization in the Pearl River Delta (PRD) Urban Agglomeration is the epitome of China’s urbanization process as the PRD is the first fastest growing metropolitan region of China. Here, we mapped and quantified the spatiotemporal dynamics of urban expansion for seven major cities in the PRD between 1980 and 2015, using remotely sensed data integrated with landscape metrics, urban growth form, and rank clocks. Results showed that rapid land urbanization occurred in all the seven cities since the execution of reform and opening up, with the annual increase rate ranging from 8.1% to 11.3% among cities, suggesting a relatively equal level of urbanization within the PRD. Socioeconomic drivers underlying urban expansion in Guangzhou, Shenzhen, and Zhuhai can be characterized as “top–down” mechanisms led by the municipal government, while those in Foshan, Jiangmen, Dongguan, and Zhongshan are “bottom–up” ones from low–level administrative organizations. The trajectory of urban expansion in Shenzhen conformed to the diffusion–coalescence urban growth hypothesis in terms of temporal evolution of landscape metrics and urban growth types. This is related to the fact that Shenzhen, the first special economic zone established by the Chinese government, was the first mover of urbanization in China and functioned under the umbrella of a robust socialist market economy relative to a highly centralized planned economy for other cities. The changes of Shenzhen in rank order in terms of both urban population and urbanization area were the largest, exemplifying its evolution from a small fishing village to a metropolis. Furthermore, we found that moving up in the rank order in terms of land use efficiency of wealth creation over time for all cities was accompanied with rank clocking up of population per area (crowd). How to balance trade–offs between the benefits and costs of urbanization is the challenge faced by the urban agglomeration.

ACS Style

Shuai Xu; Yan Sun; Shuqing Zhao. Contemporary Urban Expansion in the First Fastest Growing Metropolitan Region of China: A Multicity Study in the Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration from 1980 to 2015. Urban Science 2021, 5, 11 .

AMA Style

Shuai Xu, Yan Sun, Shuqing Zhao. Contemporary Urban Expansion in the First Fastest Growing Metropolitan Region of China: A Multicity Study in the Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration from 1980 to 2015. Urban Science. 2021; 5 (1):11.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Shuai Xu; Yan Sun; Shuqing Zhao. 2021. "Contemporary Urban Expansion in the First Fastest Growing Metropolitan Region of China: A Multicity Study in the Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration from 1980 to 2015." Urban Science 5, no. 1: 11.

Journal article
Published: 01 December 2020 in Environmental Research Communications
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The scale and extent of global urbanization are unprecedented and increasing. As urbanization generally encroaches on natural habitats and the urban ecological footprint reaches far beyond the city limits, how urbanization affects biodiversity has received increasing attention from the scientific community. Nonetheless, the comprehensive syntheses of urbanization consequences for biodiversity, including diverse taxonomic groups, across multiple spatial scales and spanning a wide gradient range of urbanization intensity are still insufficient. Here, based on the urban-rural gradient approach, we assessed the effects of urbanization on Chinese mammal and amphibian richness across the entire urbanization gradient (i.e., urbanization level from 0 to 1) at the national, regional and urban agglomeration scales. We used the global mammal and amphibian distribution data along with corresponding background climate, habitat conditions and socioeconomic activities data for analysis. Our results revealed a detailed and diverse pattern of Chinese mammal and amphibian richness along the entire spectrum of urbanization gradient across three spatial scales. And an approximately monotonic decrease only existed in certain urban agglomerations. The imprint of urbanization on mammal and amphibian richness were largely masked by the overall primacy of background climate at the national and regional scales. As the scale of analysis shifting from the country to urban agglomerations, urbanization-associated variables and locally specific limiting factors started to play important roles in driving the richness patterns. Moreover, the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis can explain the relationship between biodiversity pressure and urbanization activities in certain Chinese urban agglomerations. However, the findings of urbanization effects on biodiversity using the urban-rural gradient analysis should be interpreted with caution because many possible driving forces simultaneously present along the urban-rural gradient and are very challenging to attribute.

ACS Style

Ping Lin; Lu Yang; Shuqing Zhao. Urbanization effects on Chinese mammal and amphibian richness: a multi-scale study using the urban-rural gradient approach. Environmental Research Communications 2020, 2, 125002 .

AMA Style

Ping Lin, Lu Yang, Shuqing Zhao. Urbanization effects on Chinese mammal and amphibian richness: a multi-scale study using the urban-rural gradient approach. Environmental Research Communications. 2020; 2 (12):125002.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Ping Lin; Lu Yang; Shuqing Zhao. 2020. "Urbanization effects on Chinese mammal and amphibian richness: a multi-scale study using the urban-rural gradient approach." Environmental Research Communications 2, no. 12: 125002.

Journal article
Published: 20 May 2020 in Land Use Policy
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The distinct urbanization process of China has attracted worldwide attention because of its impressive speed, massive scale, and policy intervention. However, the interrelationship between urban expansion and government policies is still not well understood. The Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration of China is the first national pioneering urbanization area since the implementation of the policy “Reform and Opening-up” in the late 1970s. Here we compared the spatial and temporal patterns of urbanization in two leading cities of the Pearl River Delta (i.e., Guangzhou and Shenzhen, the provincial capital and the first Special Economic Zone of China, respectively) from 1975 to 2015, using Landsat data integrated with urban growth and landscape metrics analysis, and examined possible footprints of major economic and urbanization policies. Our results illustrated that urban land areas in both Guangzhou and Shenzhen have experienced magnificent annual growth rates at 8.1% and 11%, respectively between 1975 and 2015. On average, Shenzhen witnessed substantially higher urban growth rate than Guangzhou during the past four decades, particularly in the initial period (1978–1990) when the Reform and Opening-up policy was launched and Shenzhen was designated as the first Special Economic Zone in China in the late 1970s. However, the speed of urban expansion in Shenzhen became considerably lower than Guangzhou from 2005 to 2015, subject to physical conditions and a series of urban land use policies. Both cities showed a generally similar dynamics of urban growth forms with leapfrogging as the predominant type of urban growth at first and then edge-expansion while the contribution of infilling in Shenzhen was higher than that in Guangzhou, especially since 2005. The urbanization processes characterized by landscape and urban growth metrics revealed that a diffusion-coalescence-diffusion-coalescence process was identified for Guangzhou, while Shenzhen was generally consistent with the diffusion-coalescence urban growth hypothesis.

ACS Style

Liting Meng; Yan Sun; Shuqing Zhao. Comparing the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban expansion in Guangzhou and Shenzhen from 1975 to 2015: A case study of pioneer cities in China’s rapid urbanization. Land Use Policy 2020, 97, 104753 .

AMA Style

Liting Meng, Yan Sun, Shuqing Zhao. Comparing the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban expansion in Guangzhou and Shenzhen from 1975 to 2015: A case study of pioneer cities in China’s rapid urbanization. Land Use Policy. 2020; 97 ():104753.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Liting Meng; Yan Sun; Shuqing Zhao. 2020. "Comparing the spatial and temporal dynamics of urban expansion in Guangzhou and Shenzhen from 1975 to 2015: A case study of pioneer cities in China’s rapid urbanization." Land Use Policy 97, no. : 104753.

Preprint content
Published: 23 March 2020
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The scale of urbanization in China during the past 30 years is unprecedented in human history along with its fast economic growth, presenting profound impacts on socioeconomics, human well-being, and the environment. We quantified spatial patterns and temporal courses of urban land expansion for 32 major cities across China from the late 1970s to 2010 using multitemporal Landsat data of 1978, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010, and further explored the effects of urbanization on climate (i.e., urban heat islands), and vegetation phenology and growth in these 32 cities, together with MODIS Land Surface Temperature (LST) and Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) products.

We found that rapid urban expansion was observed in these 32 major cities from 1978 to 2010, with an overall annual expansion rate of 6.8 ± 2.5 %. Chinese urban expansion does not fit urban expansion theory consistently over time and has transitioned from contradicting to conforming to Gibrat’s law, which states that the growth rate is independent of city size. The surface urban heat island intensity (SUHII) differed substantially between day and night and varied greatly with season. Spatial variability of the SUHII is ultimately controlled by background climate. The growing season started 11.9 days earlier and ended 5.4 days later in urban zones compared to rural counterparts. The phenological sensitivity to temperature were 9-11 days SOS advance and 6-10 days EOS delay per 1 °C increase of LST. For the first time, we developed a general conceptual framework for quantifying the impacts of urbanization on vegetation growth and applied it in 32 Chinese cities. Results indicated prevalent vegetation growth enhancement in urban environment and vegetation growth was enhanced at 85% of the places along the intensity gradient. This growth enhancement offset about 40% of direct loss of vegetation productivity caused by replacing productive vegetated surfaces with non-productive impervious surfaces. The urban environments, considered as the "harbingers" of global environmental change and "natural laboratories" for global change studies, shed new insights and approaches into global change science, and the urban-rural gradient provides an excellent experimental manipulations for global change studies.

ACS Style

Shuqing Zhao. Contemporary Urban Expansion in China and its diverse effects. 2020, 1 .

AMA Style

Shuqing Zhao. Contemporary Urban Expansion in China and its diverse effects. . 2020; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Shuqing Zhao. 2020. "Contemporary Urban Expansion in China and its diverse effects." , no. : 1.

Journal article
Published: 11 February 2020 in Biogeosciences
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Forest soils represent a major stock of organic carbon (C) in the terrestrial biosphere, but the dynamics of soil organic C (SOC) stock are poorly quantified, largely due to lack of direct field measurements. In this study, we investigated the 20-year changes in SOC stocks in eight permanent forest plots, which represent boreal (1998–2014), temperate (1992–2012), subtropical (1987–2008), and tropical forest biomes (1992–2012) across China. SOC contents increased significantly from the 1990s to the 2010s, mostly in the upper 0–20 cm soil depth, and soil bulk densities do not change significantly during the same period. As a result, the averaged SOC stocks increased significantly from 125.2±85.2 Mg C ha−1 in the 1990s to 133.6±83.1 Mg C ha−1 in the 2010s across the forest plots, with a mean increase of 127.2–907.5 kg C ha−1 yr−1. This SOC accumulation resulted primarily from increasing leaf litter and fallen logs, which accounts 3.6 %–16.3 % of above-ground net primary production. Our findings provided direct evidence that China's forest soils have been acting as significant C sinks, although their strength varies in forests with different climates.

ACS Style

Jianxiao Zhu; Chuankuan Wang; Zhang Zhou; GuoYi Zhou; Xueyang Hu; Lai Jiang; Yide Li; Guohua Liu; Chengjun Ji; Shuqing Zhao; Peng Li; Jiangling Zhu; Zhiyao Tang; Chengyang Zheng; Richard A. Birdsey; Yude Pan; Jingyun Fang. Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight permanent forest plots in China. Biogeosciences 2020, 17, 715 -726.

AMA Style

Jianxiao Zhu, Chuankuan Wang, Zhang Zhou, GuoYi Zhou, Xueyang Hu, Lai Jiang, Yide Li, Guohua Liu, Chengjun Ji, Shuqing Zhao, Peng Li, Jiangling Zhu, Zhiyao Tang, Chengyang Zheng, Richard A. Birdsey, Yude Pan, Jingyun Fang. Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight permanent forest plots in China. Biogeosciences. 2020; 17 (3):715-726.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jianxiao Zhu; Chuankuan Wang; Zhang Zhou; GuoYi Zhou; Xueyang Hu; Lai Jiang; Yide Li; Guohua Liu; Chengjun Ji; Shuqing Zhao; Peng Li; Jiangling Zhu; Zhiyao Tang; Chengyang Zheng; Richard A. Birdsey; Yude Pan; Jingyun Fang. 2020. "Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight permanent forest plots in China." Biogeosciences 17, no. 3: 715-726.

Research article
Published: 02 December 2019 in Landscape Ecology
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Spatial heterogeneity is scale-dependent. Understanding the scaling rules of spatial features across wide ranges of scale is a major challenge in landscape ecology. The lack of scientific justification in choosing proper scale may lead to unexpected outcomes in landscape pattern analysis and result in biases in subsequent process analysis. The goal is to provide an extensive analysis on scaling relationships for a variety of landscape metrics as functions of grain size and extent. Specific research objectives are to: (1) identify scaling relationships of landscape metrics as functions of grain size, (2) define scale domains of these scaling relationships, and (3) explore how scaling relations of landscape metrics with respect to grain size would change with spatial extent. Expanding the approach of Wu and Hobbs (Landsc Ecol 17:355–365, 2002) and Wu (Landsc Ecol 19:125–138, 2004) using a much bigger dataset and covering a wider range of scales, we examined the patterns of scalograms of 38 landscape metrics within 96 sampled landscapes ranging from 25 to 221 km2 in the conterminous United States. Scaling models were derived from the scalograms as a function of grain size, and the scale domains of these models were identified as the critical scales along the dimensions of grain size and spatial extent where the performance of the models fell below a given error limit. The responses of landscape metrics with respect to changing resolutions fall into three categories: predictable across the whole spectrum of grain size investigated (Type I), predictable in a limited range of grain size (Type II), and unpredictable (Type III). For Type II metrics, the critical aggregation resolutions were identified based on the predefined error limit, and scale-invariant power-law scaling relationships were found between critical resolutions and spatial extents. All the scaling exponents are positive, suggesting that critical aggregation resolutions can be relaxed as the spatial extent expands. Furthermore, the coefficients of scaling relations for Type I and II metrics vary with spatial extents, and robust scaling functions between the coefficients and the extent can be observed for some metrics. This study addresses a fundamental scale issue in landscape ecology: how a particular spatial pattern would change with scale and how information could be adequately transferred from one scale to another. A variety of scaling relationships exist on the spatial patterns of landscape metrics, and they could provide guidance to researchers on how to select an appropriate scale for a study of interest. In addition, the findings support the empirical perception that coarser grain size might be used for a larger spatial extent.

ACS Style

Chunxue Xu; Shuqing Zhao; Shuguang Liu. Spatial scaling of multiple landscape features in the conterminous United States. Landscape Ecology 2019, 35, 223 -247.

AMA Style

Chunxue Xu, Shuqing Zhao, Shuguang Liu. Spatial scaling of multiple landscape features in the conterminous United States. Landscape Ecology. 2019; 35 (1):223-247.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Chunxue Xu; Shuqing Zhao; Shuguang Liu. 2019. "Spatial scaling of multiple landscape features in the conterminous United States." Landscape Ecology 35, no. 1: 223-247.

Journal article
Published: 20 November 2019 in Science of The Total Environment
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Urban heat magnitude and effects may represent harbingers of future climate change and the urban-rural gradients provide a unique natural laboratory for identifying both problems and solutions to climate change mitigation and adaptation. Here, we explored the trends and driving forces of land surface temperature (LST) along the urban-rural gradients of 26 cities in the largest urban agglomeration of China, the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, using MODIS LST data combined with urban intensity, background climate, vegetation greenness, landscape structure, albedo, population and gross domestic product (GDP). We found that LST generally increased with increasing urban intensity along the urban-rural gradients while with large diurnal and seasonal variability. Large variability also existed between the maximum and minimum LST within the same urban intensity (e.g., 6.4 °C), suggesting cities themselves provide ready-made solutions (minimum) to resolving heat island problems. However, the range of LST within the same intensity decreased with the urban intensity and narrowed drastically when the intensity reached certain thresholds (e.g., 58–87% varying with season, time of day, and city), implying that the space for climate mitigation is very limited once the urbanization intensity exceeds critical thresholds. The roles of landscape structure (composition and configuration) for greenspace and urban land have become increasingly important in driving the variation of LST with increasing urban intensity from low (20%–30%), middle (45%–55%) to high (70%–80%), clearly indicating that subtle urban landscape designing, such as less aggregated urban configuration and more irregular greenspace shape are effective strategies to mitigate climate change in highly urbanized areas and cities themselves already provide such vivid demonstrations for us to find and learn.

ACS Style

Wenxiao Jia; Shuqing Zhao. Trends and drivers of land surface temperature along the urban-rural gradients in the largest urban agglomeration of China. Science of The Total Environment 2019, 711, 134579 .

AMA Style

Wenxiao Jia, Shuqing Zhao. Trends and drivers of land surface temperature along the urban-rural gradients in the largest urban agglomeration of China. Science of The Total Environment. 2019; 711 ():134579.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wenxiao Jia; Shuqing Zhao. 2019. "Trends and drivers of land surface temperature along the urban-rural gradients in the largest urban agglomeration of China." Science of The Total Environment 711, no. : 134579.

Preprint content
Published: 12 September 2019
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ACS Style

Jianxiao Zhu; Chuankuan Wang; Zhang Zhou; GuoYi Zhou; Xueyang Hu; Lai Jiang; Yide Li; Guohua Liu; Chengjun Ji; Shuqing Zhao; Peng Li; Jiangling Zhu; Zhiyao Tang; Chengyang Zheng; Richard A. Birdsey; Yude Pan; Jingyun Fang. Supplementary material to "Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight typical forests in China". 2019, 1 .

AMA Style

Jianxiao Zhu, Chuankuan Wang, Zhang Zhou, GuoYi Zhou, Xueyang Hu, Lai Jiang, Yide Li, Guohua Liu, Chengjun Ji, Shuqing Zhao, Peng Li, Jiangling Zhu, Zhiyao Tang, Chengyang Zheng, Richard A. Birdsey, Yude Pan, Jingyun Fang. Supplementary material to "Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight typical forests in China". . 2019; ():1.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jianxiao Zhu; Chuankuan Wang; Zhang Zhou; GuoYi Zhou; Xueyang Hu; Lai Jiang; Yide Li; Guohua Liu; Chengjun Ji; Shuqing Zhao; Peng Li; Jiangling Zhu; Zhiyao Tang; Chengyang Zheng; Richard A. Birdsey; Yude Pan; Jingyun Fang. 2019. "Supplementary material to "Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight typical forests in China"." , no. : 1.

Preprint content
Published: 12 September 2019
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Forest soils represent a major stock of organic carbon (C) in the terrestrial biosphere, but the dynamics of soil organic carbon (SOC) stock are poorly quantified, especially based on direct field measurements. In this study, we investigated the 20-year changes in the SOC stocks at eight sites from southern to northern China. The averaged SOC stocks increased from 125.2 ± 85.2 Mg C ha−1 in the 1990s to 133.6 ± 83.1 Mg C ha−1 in the 2010s across the forest sites, with a mean increase of 127–908 kg C ha−1 yr−1. This SOC accumulation was resulted primarily from both leaf litter and fallen logs and equivalent to 3.6–16.3 % of aboveground net primary production. Our findings provide strong evidence that China's forest soils have been acting as significant carbon sinks although their strength varies with forests in different climates.

ACS Style

Jianxiao Zhu; Chuankuan Wang; Zhang Zhou; GuoYi Zhou; Xueyang Hu; Lai Jiang; Yide Li; Guohua Liu; Chengjun Ji; Shuqing Zhao; Peng Li; Jiangling Zhu; Zhiyao Tang; Chengyang Zheng; Richard A. Birdsey; Yude Pan; Jingyun Fang. Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight typical forests in China. 2019, 2019, 1 -29.

AMA Style

Jianxiao Zhu, Chuankuan Wang, Zhang Zhou, GuoYi Zhou, Xueyang Hu, Lai Jiang, Yide Li, Guohua Liu, Chengjun Ji, Shuqing Zhao, Peng Li, Jiangling Zhu, Zhiyao Tang, Chengyang Zheng, Richard A. Birdsey, Yude Pan, Jingyun Fang. Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight typical forests in China. . 2019; 2019 ():1-29.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Jianxiao Zhu; Chuankuan Wang; Zhang Zhou; GuoYi Zhou; Xueyang Hu; Lai Jiang; Yide Li; Guohua Liu; Chengjun Ji; Shuqing Zhao; Peng Li; Jiangling Zhu; Zhiyao Tang; Chengyang Zheng; Richard A. Birdsey; Yude Pan; Jingyun Fang. 2019. "Increasing soil carbon stocks in eight typical forests in China." 2019, no. : 1-29.

Journal article
Published: 01 February 2019 in Science of The Total Environment
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Megacities pose both challenges and opportunities for the transition towards sustainability, and understanding the evolution of urbanization in megacities has profound implications for human societies in an increasingly urbanized world. Here, we mapped and quantified spatiotemporal dynamics of urban expansion in China's six megacities (i.e., Beijing, Chongqing, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin) from 1978 to 2015, integrating remote sensing and GIS technology combined with landscape metrics and urban growth type analysis. The results show that six Chinese megacities have all undergone extensive physical expansion over the past four decades, and the magnitude of urban expansion is ranked in the order of Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Chongqing, Shanghai, Tianjin and Beijing, with annual growth rates of 11.02%, 8.07%, 5.80%, 5.37%, 4.56% and 3.46%, respectively. The megacities with smaller initial urban areas were associated with higher urban expansion rates. Differences in the direction, extent and location of expansion for each megacity related largely to the topography, policies and urban master planning. Temporal dynamics of urban growth and landscape metrics suggested that the urbanization processes of Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and Tianjin were basically consistent with urban growth theory, while those of Chongqing and Guangzhou did not match the theory well. Temporal coevolution of the urban area with urban population implied efficiency of urban land use in Shenzhen and Beijing, which are the first special economic zone and the capital of China, respectively. The efficiency of wealth creation in the urbanized area base was observed for all Chinese megacities, signifying the effectiveness of urban expansion as a vehicle to promote economic growth. We face the challenge of managing trade-offs between the benefits and costs of urban agglomeration.

ACS Style

Weicheng Fei; Shuqing Zhao. Urban land expansion in China's six megacities from 1978 to 2015. Science of The Total Environment 2019, 664, 60 -71.

AMA Style

Weicheng Fei, Shuqing Zhao. Urban land expansion in China's six megacities from 1978 to 2015. Science of The Total Environment. 2019; 664 ():60-71.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Weicheng Fei; Shuqing Zhao. 2019. "Urban land expansion in China's six megacities from 1978 to 2015." Science of The Total Environment 664, no. : 60-71.

Primary research articles
Published: 06 January 2019 in Global Change Biology
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Urban green spaces provide manifold environmental benefits and promote human well‐being. Unfortunately, these services are largely undervalued, and the potential of urban areas themselves to mitigate future climate change has received little attention. In this study, we quantified and mapped city‐wide aboveground carbon storage of urban green spaces in China's capital, Beijing, using field survey data of diameter at breast height (DBH) and tree height from 326 field survey plots, combined with satellite‐derived vegetation index at a fine resolution of 6 m. We estimated the total amount of carbon stored in the urban green spaces to be 956.3 Gg (1 Gg = 109 g) in 2014. There existed great spatial heterogeneity in vegetation carbon density varying from 0 to 68.1 Mg C ha−1, with an average density of 7.8 Mg C ha−1. As expected, carbon density tended to decrease with urban development intensity (UDI). Likely affected by vegetation cover proportion and configuration of green space patches, large differences presented between the 95th and 5th quantile carbon density for each UDI bin, showing great potential for carbon sequestration. However, the interquartile range of carbon density narrowed drastically when UDI reached 60%, signifying a threshold for greatly reduced carbon sequestration potentials for higher UDI. These findings suggested that urban green spaces have great potential to make contribution to mitigating against future climate change if we plan and design urban green spaces following the trajectory of high carbon density, but we should be aware that such potential will be very limited when the urban development reaches certain intensity threshold. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

ACS Style

Yan Sun; Shuai Xie; Shuqing Zhao. Valuing urban green spaces in mitigating climate change: A city‐wide estimate of aboveground carbon stored in urban green spaces of China's Capital. Global Change Biology 2019, 25, 1717 -1732.

AMA Style

Yan Sun, Shuai Xie, Shuqing Zhao. Valuing urban green spaces in mitigating climate change: A city‐wide estimate of aboveground carbon stored in urban green spaces of China's Capital. Global Change Biology. 2019; 25 (5):1717-1732.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Yan Sun; Shuai Xie; Shuqing Zhao. 2019. "Valuing urban green spaces in mitigating climate change: A city‐wide estimate of aboveground carbon stored in urban green spaces of China's Capital." Global Change Biology 25, no. 5: 1717-1732.

Editorial
Published: 01 January 2019 in Landscape Ecology
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Amy E. Frazier; Brett Bryan; Alexander Buyantuev; Liding Chen; Cristian Echeverria; Peng Jia; Lumeng Liu; Qin Li; Zhiyun Ouyang; Jianguo Wu; Wei-Ning Xiang; Jun Yang; Lihua Yang; Shuqing Zhao. Ecological civilization: perspectives from landscape ecology and landscape sustainability science. Landscape Ecology 2019, 34, 1 -8.

AMA Style

Amy E. Frazier, Brett Bryan, Alexander Buyantuev, Liding Chen, Cristian Echeverria, Peng Jia, Lumeng Liu, Qin Li, Zhiyun Ouyang, Jianguo Wu, Wei-Ning Xiang, Jun Yang, Lihua Yang, Shuqing Zhao. Ecological civilization: perspectives from landscape ecology and landscape sustainability science. Landscape Ecology. 2019; 34 (1):1-8.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Amy E. Frazier; Brett Bryan; Alexander Buyantuev; Liding Chen; Cristian Echeverria; Peng Jia; Lumeng Liu; Qin Li; Zhiyun Ouyang; Jianguo Wu; Wei-Ning Xiang; Jun Yang; Lihua Yang; Shuqing Zhao. 2019. "Ecological civilization: perspectives from landscape ecology and landscape sustainability science." Landscape Ecology 34, no. 1: 1-8.

Article
Published: 28 December 2018 in Environmental Monitoring and Assessment
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Urban expansion is influenced by various natural and anthropogenic factors. Understanding the driving forces of urban expansion is crucial for modeling the process of urban expansion as well as guiding urban planning and management. Here, we quantified and compared the effects of natural, socioeconomic, and neighboring factors on urban expansion and their temporal dynamics in three large cities in the Jing-Jin-Ji Urban Agglomeration: Beijing, Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang. We used remote sensing imagery from six epochs (circa 1980, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010) integrated with GIS techniques and analyzed using binary logistic regression. The relative importance of the three types of driving forces was further decomposed using variance partitioning. We found that the direction and/or magnitude of effects on the drivers of urban expansion varied with both epoch and city. Natural factors placed significant constraints at early stages of urban expansion, but this constraint relaxed over time. As precursor drivers of urbanization, socioeconomic factors significantly influenced urban growth in most epochs for each city. Non-urban lands near existing urban areas were more likely to be urbanized, due to easier access to existing transportation infrastructure and other facility resources. Furthermore, with urbanization, individual effects of drivers tended to be replaced by joint effects, especially for the neighboring factors. Similarities and differences in the individual and joint effects of drivers on urban expansion across cities and through time will provide valuable information for adaptive urban development strategies in the national capital region of China.

ACS Style

Wenjia Wu; Shuqing Zhao; Geoffrey M. Henebry. Drivers of urban expansion over the past three decades: a comparative study of Beijing, Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 2018, 191, 34 .

AMA Style

Wenjia Wu, Shuqing Zhao, Geoffrey M. Henebry. Drivers of urban expansion over the past three decades: a comparative study of Beijing, Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang. Environmental Monitoring and Assessment. 2018; 191 (1):34.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wenjia Wu; Shuqing Zhao; Geoffrey M. Henebry. 2018. "Drivers of urban expansion over the past three decades: a comparative study of Beijing, Tianjin, and Shijiazhuang." Environmental Monitoring and Assessment 191, no. 1: 34.

Comparative study
Published: 05 July 2018 in Ecological Applications
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Most of the planet's population currently lives in urban areas and urban land expansion is one of the most dramatic forms of land conversion. Understanding how cities evolve temporally, spatially, and organizationally in a rapidly urbanizing world is critical for sustainable development. However, few study has examined the co‐evolution of urban attributes in time and space simultaneously and the adequacy of the power law scaling across cities and through time, particularly in countries that have experienced abrupt, widespread political and economic changes. Here we show the temporal co‐evolution of multiple physical, demographic, socioeconomic, and environmental attributes in individual cities, and the cross‐city scaling of urban attributes at six time points (i.e., 1978, 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, and 2010) in 32 major Chinese cities. We found the power law scaling could adequately characterize both the cross‐city scaling of urban attributes across cities and the longitudinal scaling describing the temporal co‐evolution of urban attributes within individual cities. The cross‐city scaling properties demonstrated substantial changes over time signifying evolved social and economic forces. A key finding was that the cross‐city linear or superlinear scaling of urban area with population contradicts the theoretical sublinear power law scaling proposed between infrastructure and population. Furthermore, the cross‐city scaling between area and population transitioned from linear to superlinear over time, and the superlinear scaling in recent times suggests decreased infrastructure efficiency. Our results demonstrate a diseconomy of scale in urban areal expansion that indicates a significant waste of land resources in the urbanization process. Future planning efforts should focus on policies that increase urban land use efficiency before continuing expansion. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

ACS Style

Shuqing Zhao; Shuguang Liu; Chunxue Xu; Wenping Yuan; Yan Sun; Wende Yan; Meifang Zhao; Geoffrey M. Henebry; Jingyun Fang. Contemporary evolution and scaling of 32 major cities in China. Ecological Applications 2018, 28, 1655 -1668.

AMA Style

Shuqing Zhao, Shuguang Liu, Chunxue Xu, Wenping Yuan, Yan Sun, Wende Yan, Meifang Zhao, Geoffrey M. Henebry, Jingyun Fang. Contemporary evolution and scaling of 32 major cities in China. Ecological Applications. 2018; 28 (6):1655-1668.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Shuqing Zhao; Shuguang Liu; Chunxue Xu; Wenping Yuan; Yan Sun; Wende Yan; Meifang Zhao; Geoffrey M. Henebry; Jingyun Fang. 2018. "Contemporary evolution and scaling of 32 major cities in China." Ecological Applications 28, no. 6: 1655-1668.

Primary research articles
Published: 19 May 2018 in Global Change Biology
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Cities are natural laboratories for studying vegetation responses to global environmental changes because of their climate, atmospheric, and biogeochemical conditions. However, few holistic studies have been conducted on the impact of urbanization on vegetation growth. We decomposed the overall impacts of urbanization on vegetation growth into direct (replacement of original land surfaces by impervious built‐up) and indirect (urban environments) components, using a conceptual framework and remotely‐sensed data for 377 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) in the conterminous United States (CONUS) in 2001, 2006, and 2011. Results showed that urban pixels are often greener than expected given the amount of paved surface they contain. The vegetation growth enhancement due to indirect effects occurred in 88.4%, 90.8% and 92.9% of urban bins in 2001, 2006 and 2011, respectively. By defining offset value as the ratio of the absolute indirect and direct impact, we obtained that growth enhancement due to indirect effects compensated for about 29.2%, 29.5% and 31.0% of the reduced productivity due to loss of vegetated surface area on average in 2001, 2006, and 2011, respectively. Vegetation growth responses to urbanization showed little temporal variation but large regional differences with higher offset value in the western CONUS than in the eastern CONUS. Our study highlights the prevalence of vegetation growth enhancement in urban environments and the necessity of differentiating various impacts of urbanization on vegetation growth, and calls for tailored field experiments to understand the relative contributions of various driving forces to vegetation growth and predict vegetation responses to future global change using cities as harbingers. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

ACS Style

Wenxiao Jia; Shuqing Zhao; Shuguang Liu. Vegetation growth enhancement in urban environments of the Conterminous United States. Global Change Biology 2018, 24, 4084 -4094.

AMA Style

Wenxiao Jia, Shuqing Zhao, Shuguang Liu. Vegetation growth enhancement in urban environments of the Conterminous United States. Global Change Biology. 2018; 24 (9):4084-4094.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wenxiao Jia; Shuqing Zhao; Shuguang Liu. 2018. "Vegetation growth enhancement in urban environments of the Conterminous United States." Global Change Biology 24, no. 9: 4084-4094.

Research article
Published: 13 April 2018 in Earth's Future
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China is facing the challenge of feeding a growing population with the declining cropland and increasing shortage of water resources under the changing climate. This study identified that the opportunistic profit‐driven shifts of planting areas and crop species composition have strongly reduced the food production capacity of China. First, the regional cultivation patterns of major crops in China have substantially shifted during the past five decades. Southeast and South China, the regions with abundant water resources and fewer natural disasters, have lost large planting areas of cropland in order to pursuit industry and commerce. Meanwhile, Northeast and Northwest China, the regions with low water resources and frequent natural disasters, have witnessed increases in planting areas. These macro shifts have reduced the national food production by 1.02% per year. The lost grain production would have been enough to feed 13 million people. Second, the spatial shifts have been accompanied by major changes in crop species composition, with substantial increases in planting area and production of maize, due to its low water consumption and high economic returns. Consequently, the stockpile of maize in China has accounted for more than half of global stockpile, and the stock to use ratio of maize in China has exceeded the reliable level. Market‐driven regional shifts of cropping practices have resulted in larger irrigation requirements and aggravate environmental stresses. Our results highlighted the need for Chinese food policies to consider the spatial shifts in cultivation, and the planting crop compositions limited by regional water resources and climate change.

ACS Style

Wenping Yuan; Shuguang Liu; Wei Liu; Shuqing Zhao; Wenjie Dong; F Tao; Min Chen; Hui Lin. Opportunistic Market-Driven Regional Shifts of Cropping Practices Reduce Food Production Capacity of China. Earth's Future 2018, 6, 634 -642.

AMA Style

Wenping Yuan, Shuguang Liu, Wei Liu, Shuqing Zhao, Wenjie Dong, F Tao, Min Chen, Hui Lin. Opportunistic Market-Driven Regional Shifts of Cropping Practices Reduce Food Production Capacity of China. Earth's Future. 2018; 6 (4):634-642.

Chicago/Turabian Style

Wenping Yuan; Shuguang Liu; Wei Liu; Shuqing Zhao; Wenjie Dong; F Tao; Min Chen; Hui Lin. 2018. "Opportunistic Market-Driven Regional Shifts of Cropping Practices Reduce Food Production Capacity of China." Earth's Future 6, no. 4: 634-642.