Under rapid urbanization and intensive land development, understanding the spatiotemporal patterns of cultivated land fragmentation (CLF) and its associations with cultivated land multifunctional utilization (CLMU) in economically developed regions is important for optimizing cultivated land use patterns, improving multifunctional cultivated land governance, and safeguarding regional food and ecological security. Based on multi-source data on land use, agricultural production, and socioeconomic conditions, this study uses ordinary least squares (OLS) and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models to examine year-specific associations between CLF and CLMU and their spatial variation in the Yangtze River Delta (YRD), a typical economically developed region in China. The results show that: (1) From 2000 to 2020, CLF in the YRD increased by 13.52%. Its dimensional attributes followed the order of spatial aggregation > shape regularity > resource scale, and all three dimensions declined by 9.59%, 4.30%, and 8.39%, respectively. Spatially, 94.87% of counties in the YRD showed an increase in CLF, and counties with large increases in CLF were mainly concentrated in northern Zhejiang, northern Anhui, and the northern and eastern coastal plains of Jiangsu. (2) During 2000–2020, the level of CLMU in the YRD declined slightly. Specifically, the ecological maintenance and economic support functions increased by 8.99% and 2.26%, respectively, whereas the agricultural production and social security functions decreased by 7.48% and 16.14%, respectively. Spatially, approximately 52.82% of counties showed a decline in CLMU, mainly in northern Anhui, Jiangsu, Shanghai, and Zhejiang. Counties with an increased CLMU were mainly distributed in central and southern Anhui, with increases mostly exceeding 7.4%. (3) CLF was consistently negatively correlated with CLMU during the study period, and the magnitude of this negative association varied across the five observation years. Spatially, the association between CLF and CLMU was generally negative in the north and positive in the south. The associations of CLF and different cultivated land landscape characteristics with agricultural production, economic support, social security, and ecological maintenance functions also showed significant spatio-temporal heterogeneity.
Large-scale renewable energy development in China’s desert areas faces windblown sand hazards and ecological constraints. This narrative review examines the ecological effects of wind and photovoltaic (PV) projects and the role of sand control in protecting infrastructure. Wind farms primarily alter airflow and turbulent mixing, whereas PV arrays redistribute radiation and rainfall and occupy more continuous ground surfaces. Soil moisture and vegetation responses to PV development vary with climate, soil properties, panel position and management. Increased vegetation cover alone does not establish ecosystem recovery or sustainable water use. We develop a management framework linking site conditions and dominant risks to sand control measures, water constraints and monitoring indicators. Comparisons of Kubuqi, Tengger, Gonghe and Ulan Buh summarize reported practices and identify evidence gaps and constraints on their transfer. Mechanical barriers and native vegetation can be combined where local water budgets permit, while intact desert surfaces should be protected from unnecessary disturbance. The overlap between renewable energy bases and the Northern Sand Control Belt makes coordinated planning relevant to both energy and ecological security. Long-term comparisons with pre-construction conditions and undeveloped reference sites are needed to evaluate these benefits.
Soundscapes contribute to human well-being, yet the combined effects of spatiotemporal dynamics, landscape patterns and vegetation on acoustic perception remain insufficiently understood. This study investigated Yueyatan Park (16 ha) using 20 sample points categorized by blue, blue–green and green landscapes in street-side or inner-park locations. Over two weekdays and two rest days, A-weighted sound pressure level (SPL) was measured (5 × 2 min, energy-averaged), ISO 12913 soundwalk evaluations were conducted (960 valid responses) and plant diversity was surveyed. Results showed that rest-day SPL exceeded weekday levels, peaking 14:00–18:00, with blue–green and street-side sites loudest. Perception decoupled from SPL: water sound and birdsong enhanced ISO-P (Pleasantness) and ISO-E (Eventfulness), while traffic noise reduced ISO-P. Mediation analysis indicated that elevated SPL suppressed natural sounds and amplified traffic noise. Three-way ANOVA confirmed significant effects of time, pattern and location on ISO-P, with key Pattern × Time interactions. Plant diversity exhibited non-linear effects; overall richness sometimes lowered ISO-P via recreational noise, whereas shrub and tree richness buffered temporal fluctuations in perception. Within this single-park, non-probability sample, results suggest that soundscape quality depends more on source semantics than absolute noise levels. An eco-acoustic coupling framework integrating vegetation structure, landscape pattern and time-sensitive management may inform to optimise urban park soundscapes.
Three organisational arrangements dominate the transfer of contracted land management rights in rural China: village collectives, enterprises and large farming households. Using the 2020 China Rural Revitalization Survey (191 villages, 2325 households), we classify each village by the operator holding the largest share of transferred area, estimate censored Tobit, ordinary least squares and logit models with village-clustered standard errors, and grade every result by whether it survives two-part models, matching and doubly robust estimators. Four findings are robust: enterprise-dominated villages record land rents about 217 yuan per mu and year above collective-dominated villages and more written contracts, and their households are about five percentage points less likely to be very satisfied with income, as are households under large-household dominance, by a smaller margin. Land productivity, farm scale, labour allocation and collective assets do not differ, and the satisfaction gap is spread across the village rather than concentrated among households that leased land out. We read the pattern as a difference in how the value of land is divided rather than in how much it yields.
Social actors play a key role in urban heritage conservation by shaping decisions, conflicts, and territorial transformations. However, their incorporation into spatial modelling remains limited. This study evaluates whether spatialised social actor presence provides additional explanatory and predictive information for land-use change modelling in Bellavista, Tomé, Chile. The workflow combines Least Absolute Shrinkage and Selection Operator (LASSO)-based variable selection followed by an unpenalised binomial Generalised Linear Model (GLM) for interpretation, Random Forest for prediction, and Cellular Automata for spatial simulation, with predictive performance assessed through spatial cross-validation. The contribution of the social dimension was evaluated by comparing models with and without social actor presence variables under spatial cross-validation. The results show modest but consistent improvements in spatial predictive performance when social variables are incorporated. Social actor presence showed transition-specific effects: Companies and Academia were significantly associated with the Historic-to-New transition, whereas no individual social variable was significant for the Historic Open Space-to-New transition. Nevertheless, incorporating social variables consistently improved Random Forest performance under spatial cross-validation in both transitions. The retrospective simulation reproduced the main observed patterns of change, while the 2030 scenario indicates a substantial reduction in historic open spaces.
