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In a previous longitudinal diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) study, we observed cerebral white matter (WM) alterations (reduced fractional anisotropy (FA)) related to decreased cognitive performance 3–5 months after chemotherapy-treatment (t2) when compared to baseline (t1) (Deprez et al. in Journal of Clinical Oncology: Official Journal of the American Society of Clinical Oncology, 30(3), 274–281. doi:10.1200/JCO.2011.36.8571, 2012). The current study investigates the evolution and the nature of these previously observed microstructural changes. Twenty-five young women with early-stage breast cancer who received chemotherapy treatment (C+), 14 who did not receive chemotherapy (C-) and 15 healthy controls (HC) previously studied, underwent reassessment 3–4 years after treatment (t3). We assessed (1) longitudinal changes of cognitive performance and FA and (2) cross-sectional group differences in myelin-water-imaging and multishell diffusion MRI metrics at t3. MRI metrics were assessed on a voxel-by-voxel basis and in regions-of-interest (ROI) in which previous WM injury was detected. Longitudinal results: Mixed-effects modeling revealed significant group-time interactions for verbal memory and processing speed (p < 0.05) reflecting regained performance in the C+ group at t3. Furthermore, in chemotherapy-treated patients, FA returned to baseline levels at t3 in all ROIs (p < 0.002), whereas no FA changes were seen in controls. Additionally, FA increase from t2 to t3 correlated with time since treatment in two of the four regions (r = 0.40, p < 0.05). Cross-sectional results: Advanced diffusion MRI and myelin-water imaging metrics in the ROIs did not differ between groups. Similarly, no whole-brain voxelwise differences were detected. Initial WM alterations and reduced cognitive performance following chemotherapy-treatment were found to recover in a group of young breast cancer survivors three to four years after treatment.

The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MR-SNWDP) in China, as the largest inter-basin water transfer initiative in the world, has profoundly influenced the regional hydrology, ecology and climate of both the Water Source Areas (WSA) and Water Receiving Areas (WRA). This study aimed to comprehensively assess the long-term environmental impacts of the MR-SNWDP from 2004 to 2023, with particular emphasis on vegetation dynamics in response to both climatic and anthropogenic drivers. It addressed a critical knowledge gap regarding the spatially heterogeneous ecosystem responses to large-scale hydrological interventions under climate variability. Utilizing satellite-derived datasets including GRACE Terrestrial Water Storage Anomalies (TWSA) for hydrological variations and MODIS Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) for vegetation activity, we combined trend analysis with attribution modeling to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of environmental change. The findings highlighted that the MR-SNWDP has significantly alleviated water shortages in the WRA by increasing surface water storage and reducing groundwater extraction. This shift in water accessibility promoted vegetation growth, particularly in cropland regions, by extending the growing season through earlier greening and delayed senescence. Climatic factors such as precipitation and temperature were the dominant positive drivers of NDVI, while anthropogenic stressors, including urban expansion and agricultural intensification, exerted negative effects. However, the influence of climatic factors on vegetation dynamics weakened in the WRA following the project’s implementation, while the impacts of human activities became more prominent. This trend was attributed to the long-term redistribution of water resources under the MR-SNWDP, which mitigated water scarcity and rendered vegetation growth less sensitive to climatic fluctuations. Furthermore, vegetation recovery contributed to regulating urban microclimate and mitigating the urban heat island effect, reflecting broader ecological benefits in the WRA. In contrast, the WSA experienced reduced vegetation activity and increased ecological vulnerability, emphasizing the need to balance inter-basin water transfers with local ecosystem sustainability.

At present, nearly half of the population of China live in water-deficient areas where water needs to be transferred from surrounding or remote water sources to meet local water demands. Although the water transfer project has alleviated the demands for water in the water-deficient areas, and brought water-supply income to water source regions, it has also posed some cross-regional negative impacts, including the changes in the original ecology within the water source, the impacts on the downstream water demands, and the risk of biological invasion in the distant water receiving areas. Therefore, it can be seen that the impact of water transfer is complicated and will be manifested in various aspects. The Middle Route of China’s South–North Water Transfer Project (SNWTP-MR), as the world’s largest cross-watershed water transfer project, exerts particularly important effects on regional sustainable development; however, it also produces complex interactions within the ecological environment itself, downstream and in the distant water receiving cities. Thus, this work attempts to apply a metacoupling analysis framework of water transfer to explore the ecological interaction of water transfer in SNWTP-MR on each system. The metacoupling framework can be divided into intracoupling, pericoupling and telecoupling. This study focuses on the analysis of the causes and effects of the intracoupling, pericoupling and telecoupling of SNWTP-MR from the perspective of ecological values and ecological risks. We found that the coupling of water transfer brings about 23 billion yuan of ecological service value to the water source annually, but also increases the internal ecological risk index by 9.31%, through the calculation of changes in land use; secondly, the power generation benefit significantly increases, and the flood control standards have shifted from once-in-20 years to once-in-a-century. However, the ecological risks are also significant, such as poor water quality, eutrophication of water resources, competition for water between industry and agriculture, deterioration of waterway shipping, and threats to biodiversity, etc. Considering only water supply, the population carrying capacity of the water resource in distant water receiving cities is increased by 16.42 million people, which enhances the value of water resources and creates a cross-regional green ecological landscape belt. Nevertheless, the biological invasion and water pollution have greatly affected the safety of water supply. It can be seen that the cross-regional water transfer does not always damage the interests of the sending system and the spillover system while benefiting the receiving system; its impacts are complex and variable. Through this paper, it is hoped to provide a reference for the analysis of the ecological compensation, resource development and allocation in SNWTP-MR by revealing the metacoupling relationship of SNWTP-MR. This paper will provide new ideas for researching the metacoupling relationship, thereby offering valuable reference for the study of the interaction generated by large-scale water transfer.

Network analysis has contributed to studies of the interactions of microorganisms and the identification of key populations. However, such analysis has rarely been conducted in the study of reservoir bacterioplankton communities. This study investigated the bacterioplankton community composition in the surface water of the Danjiangkou Reservoir using the Illumina MiSeq sequencing platform. We observed that the bacterioplankton community primarily consisted of 27 phyla and 336 genera, including Actinobacteria, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes, demonstrating the richness of the community composition. Redundancy analysis of the bacterioplankton communities and environmental variables showed that the total nitrogen (TN), pH, chemical oxygen demand (COD), and permanganate index (CODMn) were important factors affecting the bacterioplankton distribution. Network analysis was performed using the relative abundances of bacterioplankton based on the phylogenetic molecular ecological network (pMEN) method. The connectivity of node i within modules (Zi), the connectivity of node i among modules (Pi), and the number of key bacteria were high at the Taizishan and Heijizui sites, which were associated with higher TN contents than at the other sites. Among the physicochemical properties of water, TN, ammonia nitrogen (NH4–N), pH, COD, and dissolved oxygen (DO) might have great influences on the functional units of the bacterial communities in bacterioplankton molecular networks. This study improves the understanding of the structure and function of bacterioplankton communities in the Danjiangkou Reservoir.

The Middle Route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project (MR-SNWDP) in China, with construction beginning in 2003, diverts water from Danjiangkou Reservoir to North China for residential, agriculture and industrial use. The water source area of the MR-SNWDP is the region that is most sensitive to and most affected by the construction of this water diversion project. In this study, we used Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) and HJ-1A/B images from 2000 to 2015 by an object-based approach with a hierarchical classification method for mapping land cover in the water source area. The changes in land cover were illuminated by transfer matrixes, single dynamic degree, slope zones and fractional vegetation cover (FVC). The results indicated that the area of cropland decreased by 31% and was replaced mainly by shrub over the past 15 years, whereas forest and settlements showed continuous increases of 29.2% and 77.7%, respectively. The changes in cropland were obvious in all slope zones and decreased most remarkably (−43.8%) in the slope zone above 25°. Compared to the FVC of forest and shrub, significant improvement was exhibited in the FVC of grassland, with a growth rate of 16.6%. We concluded that local policies, including economic development, water conservation and immigration resulting from the construction of the MR-SNWDP, were the main drivers of land cover changes; notably, they stimulated the substantial and rapid expansion of settlements, doubled the wetlands and drove the transformation from cropland to settlements in immigration areas.