Humans have increasingly intervened in the nature to advance socioeconomic development at the expense of ecosystem services. Tradeoffs between ecosystem services and socioeconomic development are inevitable and should be considered in sustainable ecosystem management. This is no exception in Zhangye where intensive agricultural activities have significantly affected its ecological conditions. Thus, this study evaluated the tradeoffs between agricultural production and key ecosystem services along with their spatial distributions at the watershed level in Zhangye based on multisource observation data. The key ecosystem services, including net primary productivity (NPP), water yield, and soil conservation, were evaluated for the years 2000, 2010, and 2015 using remote sensing data and the InVEST model. The Morishima elasticity of substitution (MES) between these ecosystem services and agricultural production were then estimated by applying a quadratic directional output distance function, and mapped to determine the tradeoffs. The results showed that the average NPP and annual water yield respectively increased by 22% and 24%, while annual soil conservation decreased by 22% during 2000-2015. The average MES values for agricultural production with NPP, water yield, and soil conservation were 0.14, -0.69, and -0.56, respectively. This indicated the existence of a synergetic relationship between agricultural production and NPP as well as tradeoff relationships between agricultural production and water yield/soil conservation. Differences in the spatial patterns of the relationships between agricultural production and these ecosystem services were observed. Significant tradeoff relationships were observed for agricultural production with water yield and soil conservation in the upper reach of Zhangye. It indicated that increasing agricultural production would be at the cost of decreased water yield and soil conservation, especially in the upper reach area. The quantification and spatial pattern determinations of tradeoffs between ecosystem services and agricultural production is useful for the development of regional ecological conservation policy and sustainable ecosystem management.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.136032 | DOI Listing |
Anal Chem
January 2025
Department of Chemistry, College of Sciences, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210095, People's Republic of China.
Accurate discrimination of complicated glycosaminoglycans is a challenging but meaningful task for ensuring their safe use in clinics. With the purpose of reducing the production cost of sensor arrays for glycosaminoglycans, three fluorescence turn-on sensors named , , and were readily synthesized by simple alkylation of the pyridyl units of the π-extended AIEgen, namely, tetra-(4-pyridylphenyl) ethylene. The designed sensors are cross-reactive toward tested glycosaminoglycans including heparin, chondroitin sulfate, hyaluronic acid, and dextran sulfate, whose mechanism could be ascribed to the multivalent electrostatic, CH···π, and hydrophobic interactions between the sensors and different glycosaminoglycans to form corresponding fluorescent aggregates.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFProc Natl Acad Sci U S A
February 2025
Museum of Natural History, University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, CO 80309.
Amid global challenges like climate change, extinctions, and disease epidemics, science and society require nuanced, international solutions that are grounded in robust, interdisciplinary perspectives and datasets that span deep time. Natural history collections, from modern biological specimens to the archaeological and fossil records, are crucial tools for understanding cultural and biological processes that shape our modern world. At the same time, natural history collections in low and middle-income countries are at-risk and underresourced, imperiling efforts to build the infrastructure and scientific capacity necessary to tackle critical challenges.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLOS Glob Public Health
January 2025
Global Health Program, Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute, Washington, DC, United States of America.
Climate change is having unprecedented impacts on human health, including increasing infectious disease risk. Despite this, health systems across the world are currently not prepared for novel disease scenarios anticipated with climate change. While the need for health systems to develop climate change adaptation strategies has been stressed in the past, there is no clear consensus on how this can be achieved, especially in rural areas in low- and middle-income countries that experience high disease burdens and climate change impacts simultaneously.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
January 2025
Department of Geography, University College London, London, England, United Kingdom.
Evaluating the dynamic co-evolution and feedback mechanisms within socio-ecological systems is crucial for determining the resilience and sustainability of environmental governance strategies. The grass-livestock system, as a complex entity encompassing livestock nutrition, foraging behavior, vegetation ecology, pastoralists' economic income, and policy interventions, indicates that any change in a single element may trigger a chain reaction within the system. This paper uses a system dynamics approach to construct a simulation model of the grass-livestock system in alpine pastoral areas, simulating the long-term dynamic co-evolution of the socio-ecological system in the Qilian Mountains region of China.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPLoS One
January 2025
College of Engineering, Shenyang Agricultural University, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, People's Republic of China.
One of the primary challenges faced by small rubbing filament machines is the significant variability in material sizes, particularly in the feeding direction. This variability complicates the processing of locally baled straw with a single device. To address this issue, an adjustable feeding and bale-breaking device was developed and tested to enhance the filamentous performance of baled straw.
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