Excessive human activities destroy the structure and function of ecosystems and threaten sustainable development. As a typical resource-based area, the overexploitation of resources in Shanxi Province leads to an increasingly serious contradiction between ecosystems and sustainable development....

We analyzed the spatial distribution of lake and reservoir water quality in China, and the trends from 2005 to 2010, based on monitoring data from 28 large Chinese lakes and reservoirs. We used a comprehensive water pollution index (WPI) to describe water quality and also identified the major...

Growing water scarcity is one of the central challenges for sustainability in China, given its burgeoning industry and huge population, especially in the arid and semi-arid inland river basin where precipitation is very limited. Industrial transformation is an important engine of economic...

There has been very limited research on water use efficiency for soil conservation (WUE-SC) in typical water scarce regions such as the lower Heihe River Basin, where there is serious wind erosion and the soil conservation service plays a key role in guaranteeing the ecological safety of...

Complex land use/cover patterns in urban areas significantly influence their prevailing surface temperature conditions. As a result of differential cooling and heating of various land use/cover, large temperature ranges are associated with bare land, built-up land,<i> etc.</i> and low ranges are found...