Explore the vast range of titles available.

Overdependence and cumulative anthropogenic stresses have caused world forests to decrease at an unprecedented rate, especially in Southeast Asia. The Cox’s Bazar–Teknaf Peninsula of Bangladesh is not an exception and follows the global deforestation trend. Despite being one of the country’s richest forest ecosystems with multiple wildlife sanctuaries, reserve forests, and influential wildlife habitats, the peninsula is now providing shelter for nearly one million Rohingya refugees. With the global deforestation trend coupled with excessive anthropogenic stresses from the Rohingya population, the forests in the peninsula are continuously deteriorating in terms of quality and integrity. In response to deforestation, the government invested in conservation efforts through afforestation and restoration programs, although the peninsula faced a refugee crisis in August 2017. The impact of this sudden increase in population on the forest ecosystem is large and has raised questions and contradictions between the government’s conservation efforts and the humanitarian response. Relocation of the refugees seems to be a lengthy process and the forest ecosystem integrity needs to be preserved; therefore, the degree of stresses, level of impacts, and pattern of deforestation are crucial information for forest conservation and protection strategies. However, there are a lack of quantitative analyses on how the forest ecosystem is deteriorating and what future results would be in both space and time. In this study, the impact of the sudden humanitarian crisis (i.e., Rohingya refugees) as anthropogenic stress in Cox’s Bazar–Teknaf peninsula has been spatiotemporally modeled and assessed using Sentinel-2 satellite imagery and other collateral data. Using the density and accessibility of the Rohingya population along with the land cover and other physiographic data, a multi-criteria evaluation (MCE) technique was applied through the Markov cellular automata technique to model the forest vegetation status. The impact of deforestation differs in cost due to variability of the forest vegetation covers. The study, therefore, developed and adopted three indices for assessment of the forest ecosystem based on the variability and weight of the forest cover loss. The spatial severity of impact (SSI) index revealed that out of 5415 ha of total degraded forest lands, 650 ha area would have the highest cost from 2017 to 2027. In the case of the ecosystem integrity (EI) index, a rapid decline in ecosystem integrity in the peninsula was observed as the integrity value fell to 1190 ha (2019) from 1340 ha (2017). The integrity is expected to further decline to 740 ha by 2027, if the stress persists in a similar fashion. Finally, the findings of ecosystem integrity depletion (EID) elucidated areas of 540 and 544 hectares that had a severe EID score of (−5) between 2017 and 2019 and 2017 and 2027, respectively. The displacement and refugee crisis is a recurrent world event that, in many cases, compromises the integrity and quality of natural space. Therefore, the findings of this study are expected to have significant global and regional implications to help managers and policymakers of forest ecosystems make decisions that have minimal or no impact to facilitate humanitarian response.

China launched its pilot national park system in 2015, and Shennongjia National Park has attracted much attention as one of the first batch of pilot national parks. The primary goal of national park construction in China is to effectively protect the integrity and authenticity of nationally important natural ecosystems. Based on the theory of landscape ecology, this study interpreted data from high-resolution remote sensing images and used landscape pattern analysis, spatial correlation analysis, and geographic weighted regression analysis to quantitatively evaluate the integrity of natural ecosystems at the landscape scale. A more accurate and operable calculation method was proposed to analyze the spatial variation in natural ecosystem integrity and to explore the scope and intensity of the impact of different anthropogenic activities on natural ecosystem integrity. The results showed that: (1) from the perspective of the spatial distribution patterns of natural ecosystem integrity, the degree of natural ecosystem integrity of Shennongjia National Park was generally high, with an integrity index value of 96.06, and the proportion of high-integrity areas accounted for 72.38%. The integrity index value of the strict protection zone was 98.83, and the proportion of the low-integrity index area only accounted for 0.01% of the strict protection zone, which was mainly distributed in the main urban areas of the nearby townships and along the highways in the national park, as well as in other areas with intensive anthropogenic activities. (2) From the perspective of the degree of impact of anthropogenic activities on natural ecosystem integrity, population density (0.3344), traffic accessibility (0.2389), traditional utilization activities (0.1101), and industrial and mining activities (0.0095) were, in descending order, the most impactful, and there was no significant correlation between ecotourism activities and natural ecosystem integrity. (3) From the perspective of the impact range of anthropogenic activities on natural ecosystem integrity, traditional utilization activities had the largest impact, accounting for 19.71% of the total area of the national park. The area affected by population density accounted for 1.52%. Industrial and mining activities had an influence of 4.75%, and the area affected by traffic accessibility accounted for 9.28%. Through conducting quantitative research into the integrity of natural ecosystems in Shennongjia National Park, this study provides a new research paradigm for the conservation of natural ecosystems and for the sustainable development of resources in protected areas, which is of great significance for the sensible development of national park conservation and management.

Context The establishment of an ecosystem health assessment framework from a human–environment view is vital to landscape sustainability. Although several studies have improved the assessment framework by integrating ecosystem services (ESs) supply or demand, consideration of the sustainable supply of ESs is lacking. Objectives The objective of this paper is to improve the current methodological framework by integrating ecological integrity and the sustainable supply of ESs to establish an ecosystem health assessment framework. Methods An improved assessment framework, including four indicators, vigor, organization, resilience, and ecosystem services supply rate, was established from the perspective of human–environment systems . Then, the performance of the improved assessment framework was demonstrated in a case study in China from 2000 to 2020. Results From 2000 to 2020, the overall spatial pattern of ecosystem health values in China was high in the southern and southeastern coastal regions, and low health values were mostly located in the western region, parts of Inner Mongolia, and metropolitan areas, with a descending trend from southeast to northwest. The imbalance between the potential and actual supply of ESs greatly contributed to the deterioration of regional ecosystem health. During the study period, the regional ecosystem in China was found to be in a more unhealthy state than in traditional Vigor-Organization-Resilience-Ecosystem services (VORES) evaluation. Conclusions The improved assessment framework that incorporates the ecological integrity and sustainable supply of ESs provides a new perspective for understanding the complex inherent characteristics of ecosystems and the regional human-nature connectedness in coupled human–environment systems. Our results could serve as a scientific reference for practical landscape governance in a changing world to achieve landscape sustainability.

The current erosion of biodiversity is a major concern that threatens the ecological integrity of ecosystems and the ecosystem services they provide. Due to global change, an increasing proportion of river networks are drying and changes from perennial to non-perennial flow regimes represent dramatic ecological shifts with potentially irreversible alterations of community and ecosystem dynamics. However, there is minimal understanding of how biological communities respond functionally to drying. Here, we highlight the taxonomic and functional responses of aquatic macroinvertebrate communities to flow intermittence across river networks from three continents, to test predictions from underlying trait-based conceptual theory. We found a significant breakpoint in the relationship between taxonomic and functional richness, indicating higher functional redundancy at sites with flow intermittence higher than 28%. Multiple strands of evidence, including patterns of alpha and beta diversity and functional group membership, indicated that functional redundancy did not compensate for biodiversity loss associated with increasing intermittence, contrary to received wisdom. A specific set of functional trait modalities, including small body size, short life span and high fecundity, were selected with increasing flow intermittence. These results demonstrate the functional responses of river communities to drying and suggest that ongoing biodiversity reduction due to global change in drying river networks is threatening their functional integrity. These results indicate that such patterns might be common in these ecosystems, even where drying is considered a predictable disturbance. This highlights the need for the conservation of natural drying regimes of intermittent rivers to secure their ecological integrity.

Many global environmental agendas, including halting biodiversity loss, reversing land degradation, and limiting climate change, depend upon retaining forests with high ecological integrity, yet the scale and degree of forest modification remain poorly quantified and mapped. By integrating data on observed and inferred human pressures and an index of lost connectivity, we generate a globally consistent, continuous index of forest condition as determined by the degree of anthropogenic modification. Globally, only 17.4 million km 2 of forest (40.5%) has high landscape-level integrity (mostly found in Canada, Russia, the Amazon, Central Africa, and New Guinea) and only 27% of this area is found in nationally designated protected areas. Of the forest inside protected areas, only 56% has high landscape-level integrity. Ambitious policies that prioritize the retention of forest integrity, especially in the most intact areas, are now urgently needed alongside current efforts aimed at halting deforestation and restoring the integrity of forests globally. Mapping and quantifying degree of forest modification is critical to conserve and manage forests. Here the authors propose a new quantitative metric for landscape integrity and apply it to a global forest map, showing that less than half of the world’s forest cover has high integrity, most of which is outside nationally designed protected areas.

Rewilding is emerging as a promising restoration strategy to enhance the conservation status of biodiversity and promote self-regulating ecosystems while re-engaging people with nature. Overcoming the challenges in monitoring and reporting rewilding projects would improve its practical implementation and maximize its conservation and restoration outcomes. Here, we present a novel approach for measuring and monitoring progress in rewilding that focuses on the ecological attributes of rewilding. We devised a bi-dimensional framework for assessing the recovery of processes and their natural dynamics through (i) decreasing human forcing on ecological processes and (ii) increasing ecological integrity of ecosystems. The rewilding assessment framework incorporates the reduction of material inputs and outputs associated with human management, as well as the restoration of natural stochasticity and disturbance regimes, landscape connectivity and trophic complexity. Furthermore, we provide a list of potential activities for increasing the ecological integrity after reviewing the evidence for the effectiveness of common restoration actions. For illustration purposes, we apply the framework to three flagship restoration projects in the Netherlands, Switzerland and Argentina. This approach has the potential to broaden the scope of rewilding projects, facilitate sound decision-making and connect the science and practice of rewilding. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Trophic rewilding: consequences for ecosystems under global change’.

Significance We provide the first demonstration to our knowledge that projected changes in regional climate regimes will have significant consequences for patterns of intermittence and hydrologic connectivity in dryland streams of the American Southwest. By simulating fine-resolution streamflow responses to forecasted climate change, we simultaneously evaluate alterations in local flow continuity over time and network flow connectivity over space and relate how these changes may challenge the persistence of a globally endemic fish fauna. Given that human population growth in arid regions will only further increase surface and groundwater extraction during droughts, we expect even greater likelihood of flow intermittence and loss of habitat connectivity in the future. Protecting hydrologic connectivity of freshwater ecosystems is fundamental to ensuring species persistence, ecosystem integrity, and human well-being. More frequent and severe droughts associated with climate change are poised to significantly alter flow intermittence patterns and hydrologic connectivity in dryland streams of the American Southwest, with deleterious effects on highly endangered fishes. By integrating local-scale hydrologic modeling with emerging approaches in landscape ecology, we quantify fine-resolution, watershed-scale changes in habitat size, spacing, and connectance under forecasted climate change in the Verde River Basin, United States. Model simulations project annual zero-flow day frequency to increase by 27% by midcentury, with differential seasonal consequences on continuity (temporal continuity at discrete locations) and connectivity (spatial continuity within the network). A 17% increase in the frequency of stream drying events is expected throughout the network with associated increases in the duration of these events. Flowing portions of the river network will diminish between 8% and 20% in spring and early summer and become increasingly isolated by more frequent and longer stretches of dry channel fragments, thus limiting the opportunity for native fishes to access spawning habitats and seasonally available refuges. Model predictions suggest that midcentury and late century climate will reduce network-wide hydrologic connectivity for native fishes by 6–9% over the course of a year and up to 12–18% during spring spawning months. Our work quantifies climate-induced shifts in stream drying and connectivity across a large river network and demonstrates their implications for the persistence of a globally endemic fish fauna.

Ecological integrity has been criticized as a “bad fit as a value” for conservation biology and restoration ecology. But work over the past four decades centered on ecological integrity—especially biological integrity—has given rise to effective methods for biological monitoring and assessment to better understand the disintegration of living systems, including under scenarios of rapid climate change. Revealing when and where living systems have been altered by human activity, such methods have been adapted and applied most comprehensively in streams and rivers, but also in other ecosystems, ranging from tropical forests to marine coral reefs and on all continents except Antarctica. Equally important, restoration and maintenance of biological integrity is already a fundamental goal in law and offers an inspiring framework for communication and engagement—among scientists, resource managers, law‐ and policymakers, and the public. This essay builds the case that ecological integrity has proved both real and valuable as a conservation paradigm. Biological monitoring and assessment founded on the concept of ecological integrity, especially biological integrity, has led to real‐world achievements under the US Clean Water Act. Between 1979 and 2017, for example, the health of Ohio's Scioto River improved so much that as many as 70 fish species, including some that had been absent for more than a century, could again be found in the mainstem river near Columbus. This example is only one of the many demonstrating that ecological integrity is both real and valuable in conservation.

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) and plastics are pivotal components of modern society; nevertheless, their escalating production poses formidable challenges to resource sustainability and ecosystem integrity. Here, we showcase the transformation of spent lithium cobalt oxide (LCO) cathodes into photothermal catalysts capable of catalyzing the upcycling of diverse waste polyesters into high-value monomers. The distinctive Li deficiency in spent LCO induces a contraction in the Co−O 6 unit cell, boosting the monomer yield exceeding that of pristine LCO by a factor of 10.24. A comprehensive life-cycle assessment underscores the economic viability of utilizing spent LCO as a photothermal catalyst, yielding returns of 129.6 $·kg LCO −1 , surpassing traditional battery recycling returns (13–17 $·kg LCO −1 ). Solar-driven recycling 100,000 tons of PET can reduce 3.459 × 10 11  kJ of electric energy and decrease 38,716 tons of greenhouse gas emissions. This work unveils a sustainable solution for the management of spent LIBs and plastics. The increasing production of lithium-ion batteries and plastics presents significant challenges to resource sustainability and ecosystem integrity. This study highlights the utilization of spent lithium cobalt oxide cathodes as photothermal catalysts to transform various waste polyesters into valuable monomers.