Showing papers in "Ecological Indicators in 2018"

TL;DR: In this article, the authors proposed a remote sensing-based ecological index (RSEI) to assess the urban ecological quality, which integrated the primary land surface components (i.e., the build-up area and vegetation cover) and the climate (the land surface temperature and land surface moisture) based on the framework of the pressurestate-response (PSR) using a principal components analysis (PCA).

TL;DR: In this article, the authors identified two broad categories of challenges according to their development and implementation phase respectively, and three preliminary criteria in the application of urban sustainability indicators, and suggested remedial recommendations.

TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors analyzed the temporal and spatial characteristics of the coordination of urbanization and eco-environment of 30 provinces in China from 2005 to 2015, using the method of coupling coordination degree model and global (local) spatial autocorrelation.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors investigated current land cover types and ecological status in the Xiong’an New Area using feature inversion techniques and the improved remote sensing-based ecological index (RSEI).

TL;DR: In this article, the AutoRegressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model was applied to forecast PM2.5 concentrations in Fuzhou from August 2014 to July 2016, covering two cold periods (November through February) and two warm periods (May through July).

TL;DR: A definition and a typology of TreM types borne by living and dead standing trees in temperate and Mediterranean forests in Europe are proposed and provided the basis for compiling data and may help to improve the reliability of reporting and evaluation of the conservation value of forests.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors investigated the spatiotemporal variations of vegetation coverage using Normal Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) during 1982-2015, and distinguish the effects of climatic and anthropogenic factors on vegetation dynamics.

TL;DR: Wang et al. as discussed by the authors used a panel data set for the period 2005-2014 to estimate the eco-efficiency of 21 cities in Guangdong province, China by applying a super-slack-based measure (Super-SBM) model that considers undesirable output indicators and a Topsis model.

TL;DR: Zhang et al. as discussed by the authors used the entropy method to determine the weights for indicators and found that the vulnerability degree in western China is significant higher than that of eastern China, and the spatial distributions of vulnerability gradation are analyzed at national, regional and provincial scales, respectively.

TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper established an extended-STIRPAT model combined with system dynamics model to investigate driving factors of CO2 emissions, emission peaking and environmental Kuznets curve (EKC) hypothesis in China.

TL;DR: In this paper, a new type of indicator called Benefit-relevant indicators (BRIs) is proposed, which explicitly reflects an ecosystem's capacity to provide benefits to society, ensuring that ecosystem services assessments measure outcomes that are demonstrably and directly relevant to human welfare.

TL;DR: Zhang et al. as mentioned in this paper assessed the relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services in the Jingjinji (JJJ) urban agglomeration in northern China and revealed that with the rapid urbanization trend during the period 1996-2014, the value of ESS in the JJJ region increased by 4.63% because the increases in the forest, orchard and water areas greatly offset the decrease in ESS caused by urban sprawl.

TL;DR: In this paper, a portfolio of quantitative indicators of economic, environmental and social sustainability to assess different aquaculture systems was developed from 2003 to 2016, combining top-down and bottom-up methods, together with practical observations in experimental and commercial Aquaculture facilities.

TL;DR: In this article, the future trend of land use change of the area was modelled using Artificial Neural Network and several driver variables were also incorporated to determine their effect on land use changes.

TL;DR: Wu et al. as mentioned in this paper combined the Multi-Objective Programming and the Dyna-CLUE model to project land use changes in 2030 for Wuhan city under three scenarios, i.e., Business As Usual (BAU), Rapid Economic Development (RED), and Ecological Land Protection (ELP), and found that the predicted losses of ecological lands are 11% and 6% under the RED and ELP scenarios, respectively.

TL;DR: This integrated assessment method can provide decision makers with highly targeted decision making references to effectively reduce the flood vulnerability of the study area by considering the inhomogeneity of the internal attributes.

TL;DR: A comprehensive analysis of key definitions of Green Infrastructure and their conceptual evolution is presented, and special emphasis on the core idea of multifunctionality is significant for depicting the ‘state of the art’ of the evolving GI concept.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors adopt a fuzzy Delphi method in establishing sustainable ecotourism indicators where fuzzy set theory is used to address vagueness and uncertainty of judgments and the group decision-making process is handled by the delphi method.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors examined the stationarity of ecological footprint for 128 countries for the period 1961-2013 and found that ecological footprint is a nonstationary series and as such policies such as imposition of carbon tax, subsidy on cleaner energy and appropriate land use act will have long-term and permanent effects on it in many countries.

TL;DR: A conceptual framework for vulnerability assessment of socio-ecological systems that addresses the mentioned open questions based on a review of both theoretical and empirical literature related to vulnerability and socioecological system is presented in this article.

TL;DR: The soil quality index SQUID (Soil QUality InDicator) as discussed by the authors links a set of ten different soil functions to various ecosystem services using an expert-based Delphi approach.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors used the maximum synthesis method, univariate linear regression, Hurst exponent, and partial correlation analysis to detect the spatiotemporal variation and sustainability of vegetation coverage and characterize the relationship between vegetation NDVI and climatic factors in the wet season in the Red River Basin.

TL;DR: Zhang et al. as discussed by the authors proposed a remote sensing-based ecosystem health (ESH) index to evaluate the pressure and state of the fragile karst ecosystem in Guangxi province in southwest China.

TL;DR: In this article, an integrated multi-criteria analysis and geospatial approach was used for the evaluation of groundwater prospect following an integrated GIS-based Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA) and Catastrophe theory for delineating groundwater potential zones in a Canal Command of Eastern India.

TL;DR: In this paper, a three-dimensional evaluation model was established to evaluate the carrying capacity of regional ecological environment to social economic development, based on the study on the relationship between environmental quality, ecological quality and social economy.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors compared the ability of the topographic wetness index (TWI) and Ellenberg's indicator values (EIV) for moisture to explain the spatial variation of soil moisture in central European forests.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present a methodology, referred to as PB-LCIA, which can be used to quantify the share of the safe operating space that human activities occupy, as was illustrated by calculating indicator scores for about 10,600 products, technologies and services exemplifying several sectors, including materials, energy, transport, and processing.

TL;DR: It was found that 12 of 28 trait categories were significantly associated with changes in catchment land use and cover intensity, local physical habitat, and water quality, and that EPT assemblages in least-disturbed sites were characterized by higher proportions of large body size and low body flexibility with EPT.

TL;DR: The results indicate that the RF exhibited a better performance in predicting SOC stocks than the BRT regardless of input variables, suggesting that the method of using GA-RF to generate a predictive model from measured data and remotely-sensed variables may provide a cost effective alternative to direct sampling to predict SOC stocks in the semi-arid rangelands of eastern Australia.

TL;DR: In this article, the authors quantified land-use change and valued the impact on ecosystem services from 1990 to 2010 in the rapidly urbanizing Guangzhou-Foshan Metropolitan Area, southern China.