Surface albedo plays a controlling role in the surface energy budget, and albedo-induced radiative forcing has a significant impact on climate and environmental change (e.g., global warming, snow and ice melt, soil and vegetation degradation, and urban heat islands (UHIs)). Several existing review papers have summarized the algorithms and products of surface albedo as well as climate feedback at certain surfaces, while an overall understanding of various land types remains insufficient, especially with increasing studies on albedo management methods regarding mitigating global warming in recent years. In this paper, we present a comprehensive literature review on the variance pattern of surface albedo, the subsequent climate impact, and albedo management strategies. The results show that using the more specific term “surface albedo” is recommended instead of “albedo” to avoid confusion with similar terms (e.g., planetary albedo), and spatiotemporal changes in surface albedo can indicate subtle changes in the energy budget, land cover, and even the specific surface structure. In addition, the close relationships between surface albedo change and climate feedback emphasize the important role of albedo in climate simulation and forecasting, and many albedo management strategies (e.g., the use of retroreflective materials (RRMs)) have been demonstrated to be effective for climate mitigation by offsetting CO₂ emissions. In future work, climate effects and management strategies regarding surface albedo at a multitude of spatiotemporal resolutions need to be systematically evaluated to promote its application in climate mitigation, where a life cycle assessment (LCA) method considering both climate benefits and side effects (e.g., thermal comfort) should be followed.

River discharge is of great significance in the development of water resources and ecological protection. There are several large ungauged catchments around the word still lacking sufficient hydrological data. Obtaining accurate hydrological information from these areas is an important scientific issue. New data and methods must be used to address this issue. In this study, a new method that couples unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) data with the classical slope–area method is developed to calculate river discharges in typical ungauged catchments. UAV data is used to obtain topographic information of the river channels. In situ experiments are carried out to validate the river data. Based on slope–area method, namely the Manning–Strickler formula (M–S), Saint-Venant system of equivalence (which has two definitions, S-V-1 and S-V-2), and the Darcy–Weisbach equivalence (D–W) are used to estimate river discharge in ten sections of the Tibet Plateau and Dzungaria Basin. Results show that the overall qualification rate of the calculated discharge is 70% and the average Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient is 0.97, indicating strong practical application in the study area. When the discharge is less than 10 m³⁄s, D–W is the most appropriate method; M–S and S-V-1 are better than other methods when the discharge is between 10 m³⁄s and 50 m³⁄s. However, if the discharge is greater than 50 m³⁄s, S-V-2 provides the most accurate results. Furthermore, we found that hydraulic radius is an important parameter in the slope–area method. This study offers a quick and convenient solution to extract hydrological information in ungauged catchments.

Healthy plankton communities are the foundation of many freshwater food webs. Their biodiversity is often used to directly reflect the health of the rivers. Globally, river ecosystem restoration is a critical issue and many freshwater ecosystems, especially in cities, are degraded because of intensive human activities. This is true for Jinan, China’s first pilot city for the Water Ecological Civilisation Project. The outcomes of aquatic ecosystem restoration in the city will directly affect the success or failure of the construction of aquatic ecological civilisations across the entire country; therefore, there is an urgent need for research on the assessment of river health in Jinan based on plankton biodiversity. As such, this study gathered data on the distribution of plankton (phytoplankton and zooplankton) in Jinan by collecting three sets of samples from 59 aquatic ecosystem monitoring stations in spring, summer and autumn of 2015. In all, 104 species of phytoplankton and 56 species of zooplankton were identified. Diatoms, Chlorophyta, and Cyanophyta accounted for 50, 31 and 15% respectively of phytoplankton, and rotifers, Protozoa and cladocerans accounted for 39, 31 and 17% respectively of zooplankton. We constructed a plankton health assessment model based on the Shannon–Wiener diversity index for analysis of the temporal and spatial distribution. According to the overall health distribution diagram, spatially health status was significantly better in north and south Jinan than in the city centre; temporally, spring water ecosystem health was better than in summer and autumn. These conclusions provide a theoretical basis and direction for the restoration of aquatic ecosystems in Jinan, and the methods used in this study can serve as a reference for aquatic ecosystem evaluation in developing countries.