Semantic segmentation of remote sensing imagery (RSI) is critical in many domains due to the diverse landscapes and different sizes of geo-objects that RSI contains, making semantic segmentation challenging. In this paper, a convolutional network, named Adaptive Feature Fusion UNet (AFF-UNet), is proposed to optimize the semantic segmentation performance. The model has three key aspects: (1) dense skip connections architecture and an adaptive feature fusion module that adaptively weighs different levels of feature maps to achieve adaptive feature fusion, (2) a channel attention convolution block that obtains the relationship between different channels using a tailored configuration, and (3) a spatial attention module that obtains the relationship between different positions. AFF-UNet was evaluated on two public RSI datasets and was quantitatively and qualitatively compared with other models. Results from the Potsdam dataset showed that the proposed model achieved an increase of 1.09% over DeepLabv3 + in terms of the average F1 score and a 0.99% improvement in overall accuracy. The visual qualitative results also demonstrated a reduction in confusion of object classes, better performance in segmenting different sizes of object classes, and better object integrity. Therefore, the proposed AFF-UNet model optimizes the accuracy of RSI semantic segmentation.

Yellow River Basin urban agglomeration (YRBU) is the main carrier of regional socio-economic development in the Yellow River Basin, and its eco-environmental quality, urbanization, and coupling coordination degree are facing higher demands. It is of great significance for the development of YRBU to understand the interactive coupling relationship between the eco-environment and urbanization development from the multi-scale perspective. This research intended to understand the spatio-temporal characteristics of eco-environmental quality, urbanization, and coupling coordination degree in the study area from 2013 to 2021. We proposed an Adjusted Remote Sensing Ecological Index (A-RSEI), integrated Sentinel-2A, Landsat 8, and other remote sensing data to evaluate the eco-environmental quality of the study area, from 2013 to 2021. Coupled coordination degree (CCD) model was used to obtain the CCD between eco-environmental quality and urbanization. In addition, spatio-temporal and multi-scale analysis was carried out from the perspectives of urban agglomeration, municipal, county, and pixel scales. Combined with spatial autocorrelation analysis and Tapio decoupling model, the CCD was further explored. The results show that the proposed A-RSEI model is more suitable for monitoring the eco-environmental quality of the Yellow River Basin. The coupling coordination degree of eco-environment and urbanization in most regions of the study area are rising in a relatively green development trend. The multi-scale analysis among eco-environmental quality, urbanization, and CCD can not only indicate the impact of the central city on its surrounding areas but also help to describe the details of CCD combined with the terrain. The comprehensive discrimination of urban agglomeration and county scale is helpful to express the relationship between urbanization and eco-environmental quality centered on a certain city. The results can provide scientific support for eco-environment protection and high-quality development of the Yellow River Basin.

As an important ecological barrier in northern China, the ecological environment of the Yellow River Basin (YRB) has been greatly improved in recent decades. However, due to spatially non-stationarity, the contribution of human activities and natural factors to vegetation restoration may exhibit different coupling effects in various areas. In this paper, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of the YRB from 1986 to 2021 was used as the dependent variable, and terrain, meteorological, and socioeconomic factors were used as independent variables. With the help of Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR), which could handle the scale difference well, combined with Ordinary Least Squares (OLS) and traditional Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), the spatial non-stationary relationship between vegetation and related factors was discussed. The results showed that: (1) The vegetation was subject to fluctuating changes from 1986 to 2021, mainly improving, with a growth rate of 0.0018/year; the spatial distribution pattern of vegetation in the basin was high in the southeast and low in the northwest. (2) Compared with the OLS and GWR, the MGWR could better explain the relationship between vegetation and various factors. (3) The response scale of vegetation and related factors was significantly variant, and this scale changed with time. The effect scale of terrain factor is lower than climate and social factors. (4) There was obvious spatial heterogeneity in the effects of various influencing factors on vegetation. The vegetation of the upstream was mainly positively affected by mean annual temperature (coefficients ∈ [1.507, 1.784]); while potential evapotranspiration was the dominant factor of vegetation in the middle and lower reaches of the basin (coefficients ∈ [−1.724, −1.704]); it was worth noting that the influence of social factors on vegetation was relatively small. This study deeply explores the spatial non-stationarity of vegetation and various related factors, thereby revealing the evolution law of vegetation pattern and providing scientific support for monitoring and improving the ecological environment quality of the YRB.

Ecological environment evaluation is of great significance to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and promote the harmonious development of economy, society, and environment. To evaluate environmental SDGs, single environmental indicators have been analyzed at national or large regional scale in some literature, while the urban integrated environment is ignored. Therefore, it is necessary to systematically and quantically evaluate the sustainability of ecological environment integrating the water, soil, and air environment at the urban scale. This study aims to construct the Integrated Perception Ecological Environment Indicator (IPEEI) based on the Driver-Pressure-State-Impact-Response (DPSIR) framework to solve the above-mentioned problems. The IPEEI model was proposed based on the three-level association mechanism of the Domain-Theme-Element, and the DPSIR framework conforming to the relevant standards for indicator determination. Moreover, the multi-dimensional, multi-thematic, and multi-urban quantitative evaluations were conducted using the entropy weight method, and the comprehensive evaluation grades by the Jenks natural breaks classification method of the geospatial analysis. Nine cities in the Wuhan Metropolitan Area were selected as the experimental areas. The results were consistent with the Ecological Index and local government’s planning and measures, which demonstrated that IPEEI can be effectively verified and applied for the evaluation of urban ecological environment sustainability.

The increasing deterioration of aquatic environments has attracted more attention to water quality monitoring techniques, with most researchers focusing on the acquisition and assessment of water quality data, but seldom on the discovery and tracing of pollution sources. In this study, a semantic-enhanced modeling method for ontology modeling and rules building is proposed, which can be used for river water quality monitoring and relevant data observation processing. The observational process ontology (OPO) method can describe the semantic properties of water resources and observation data. In addition, it can provide the semantic relevance among the different concepts involved in the observational process of water quality monitoring. A pollution alert can be achieved using the reasoning rules for the water quality monitoring stations. In this study, a case is made for the usability testing of the OPO models and reasoning rules by utilizing a water quality monitoring system. The system contributes to the water quality observational monitoring process and traces the source of pollutants using sensors, observation data, process models, and observation products that users can access in a timely manner.