Urban parks provide multiple non-material benefits to human health and well-being; measuring these “intangible” benefits mainly co-produced by the spatial interactivity between dwellers and urban parks is vital for urban green space management. This paper introduced “vitality” to measure the intangible benefits of urban parks and constructed a straightforward and spatially explicit approach to assess the park vitality based on visiting intensity and recreational satisfaction rate. Freely available data of check-in comments on parks, points-of-interest (POIs), and other multi-source data from Beijing were used to assess the urban park vitality and explore the factors influencing it from the perspectives of recreational service supply, demand, and spatial linking characteristics. We found that the urban park vitalities decreased along the urban–rural gradient. The presence of water and facility density in the parks have significant positive impacts on park vitality, and high population density nearby was a positive factor. Moreover, the external higher levels of the POI-based urban function mix and density, as well as developed public transportation, were strongly associated with greater park vitality. Our research proposed a feasible and effective method to assess the park vitality, and the findings from this study have significant implications for optimizing the spatial configuration of urban parks.

Introduction: Adaptation and mitigation are two main approaches to combating climate change. Mitigation is considered as the most important tasks in dealing with climate change in scientific research, financial support and technical practices as global warming intensifies; while currently the warming trend still cannot be reversed, and adaptation task seemed to gain urgency although it is late-starting. The synergies and tradeoffs of these two strategies revealed increasingly importance on reducing adverse climate effects. Research on synergistic relationships has developed from definition and feasible analysis, to the development of quantitative tools and exploration in practice and application, though the latter aspect is still in its initial stage. Outcomes/other: Our review shows that the traits of mitigation and adaptation, the differences and similarities between them, then illustrate the significance and mechanism of their synergies and tradeoffs. And it is explained that methods and applications of single and integrated models, and cost-effectiveness analysis. Discussion/ Conclusion: We hold the opinion that the future research and applications should be enhanced in terms of four aspects: reinforcement of interrelations and common mechanisms between mitigation and adaptation actions study; building and improving the monitoring and evaluating systems; promoting departmental and regional scale investigations and applications; and establishing policy and security systems.

Urban parks not only improve the urban ecology but also provide cultural ecosystem services to city dwellers. This study investigated the relationship between cultural ecosystem services provided by urban parks and visitors’ perception of urban park from the perspective of landsenses ecology. A perceptual indicator system was developed following the analysis of landsense elements among the park elements, for four sensory dimensions. A perceptual assessment model was established using the Importance-Performance Analysis (IPA) method, which could be used to divide the perceptual indicators into five grades. We found that the importance level of perceptual indicators was influenced by the type of park elements and the functional area of the visitors’ sensory apparatus. On the one hand, park elements that are common or can be perceived easily receive more attention. On the other hand, among the distance receptors, wider functional area might be related to the higher importance level of the perceptual indicators; the immediate receptors also have considerable influence on perception since visitors contact with the environment directly through these. The most important indicators were related to vision and touch, including ‘vision of plants’, ‘vision of water’, ‘feel of sunlight’, ‘touch of roads’, and ‘sound of animals’. Furthermore, we conducted an assessment on landsense satisfaction of a typical urban park in Beijing, suggesting ways to improve visitors’ perception of urban parks from the perspective of landsenses ecology. The assessment showed that the urban park design and management practices could be improved to increase visitors’ satisfaction.

Understanding the spatiotemporal characteristics of water yield and its influencing factors is important for water resources management. In this study, we used the seasonal water yield model (SWYM) to assess the spatiotemporal water yield changes of the Lhasa River Basin from 1990 to 2015, and analyzed its influencing factors by focusing on precipitation, land cover, and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) change. We first examined the model through Morris screening sensitivity analysis and validated it with the observed flow data. Spatiotemporal variation of three indices of water yield, baseflow, quick flow, and local recharge were then assessed. Results showed that from 1990 to 2015, the baseflow, local recharge, and quick flow decreased by 67.03%, 80.21%, and 37.03%, respectively. The spatial pattern of water yield remained mostly unchanged. According to the contribution analysis, precipitation and NDVI change were the main factors affecting water yield in the Lhasa River Basin, while land cover change began to exert greater influence after 2010. A combination of climate change and human activities therefore drive water yield change, especially through vegetation change. Water resources management strategies should thus take into account the combination of rapidly changing climate and human activities.

Ecological security assessment aims at identifying an ecosystem’s stability, recognizing the ability to maintain ecological health under various scenarios of ecological risks. In this study, we focus on the ecological security of Liao River Basin not only in terms of directly considering the sustainable development of the basin itself but also in terms of its importance as part of an ecological macro-control for northeast China. We built a “structure-quality-process” analytical framework to assess the ecological security of Liao River Basin. Our results showed that (i) land conversion from cultivated to artificial surfaces represented a dramatic change occurring in the region; (ii) the requirements of regional sustainable development would not likely be satisfied in regard to the given ecosystem services provided by the basin due to poor spatial coordination capability; and (iii) the priority areas for optimizing the ecological security patterns of the basin include the upstream and the downstream regions. The “structure-quality-process” assessment framework provides a dynamic perspective of ecological security and also considers the relationships and functions of the internal structures and processes of the ecosystem. The optimization of ecosystem structures and processes is essential and forms the basic measures and key content of macro-control for well-structured ecological security patterns.

Wetlands are critical components in the landscape of Xianghe Segment of China’s Grand Canal (XSCGC) as they have many ecological functions such as water purification, habitat and biodiversity maintenance, and provide a lot of ecosystem services for human society. However, severe deterioration and destruction of the wetlands in XSCGC not only have caused the loss of ecological functions and ecosystem services, but also have threatened ecosystem health and stability of the Grand Canal. The restoration of wetland ecosystem of the XSCGC has become an important task. Based on field investigation, this paper analyzed the main ecological problems and their causes, proposed XSCGC wetland restoration measures, including water quality improvement, vegetation and habitat restoration, river channel reconstruction, and wetland reserve establishment and management. Further we proposed a dual-core wetland ecosystem pattern for XSCGC to restore wetland ecosystem and promotion of its ecosystem service, using the principle and methodology of landsenses ecology under comprehensive consideration of the background conditions of river and wetland ecosystems of XSCGC. In this pattern, we designed two key wetlands, namely upstream wetland and downstream wetland, and proposed their reconstruction goals of ecosystem services.