Vegetation restoration on degraded lands has been encouraged worldwide due to its ecological services and function of controlling soil erosion and improving carbon (C) stocks in terrestrial ...ecosystems. Although the processes of runoff and sediment detachment and transport are well recognized, the effects of vegetation restoration on organic C loss through soil erosion are not fully understood within a given landscape. This study conducted a synthesis from 66 sites to evaluate the effects of vegetation restoration on annual C loss induced by soil erosion across the key areas of the ‘Grain for Green’ Program (GGP) in the Loess Plateau, China. The results showed that vegetation restoration has significantly reduced the annual C loss in sediment and from runoff. Since 2000, a total of 8.6 × 106 ha degraded land has been converted to forests, shrubs and grasslands under the GGP, which has reduced runoff by 1.5 × 109 m3 and is associated with 7.3 × 103 Mg C; furthermore, lost sediment has reduced by 348.7 Tg, which is associated with 1.8 Tg C per year, across the Loess Plateau. In the zone with a mean annual precipitation (MAP) < 550 mm, the degraded lands that have been converted to grasslands and shrubs have reduced more soil and water losses than have the lands that have been converted to forests; additionally, in the zone with a MAP >550 mm, the degraded lands that have been converted to forests have less soil erosion than do the lands that have been converted to grasslands and shrubs. Moreover, C loss induced by soil erosion was mainly affected by plant cover, soil porosity, slope, land-use change, and rainfall intensity on the Loess Plateau. This study suggests that optimal vegetation restoration measures should be adopted based on local conditions to reduce C loss induced by soil erosion.
•Vegetation restoration significantly reduced C loss in annual runoff and sediment.•Vegetation restoration driven by land-use changes could reduce the soil erosion.•Soil, topography, land uses and rainfall intensity affecting soil erosion induced C loss.•Optimal vegetation restoration measures should be adopted based on local conditions.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
•Dam regulation disturbances influence distribution of planktonic organisms.•Ecological environment status of the upstream was better than middle and downstream.•The negative impact of human ...interference on the ecological health of the Shaying River is greater than the positive.
In multi-dam river systems, human disturbances can significantly disrupt river connectivity, fragment habitats, and harm aquatic ecosystems. Aiming at the comprehensive assessment of the spatial distribution of water ecological health, as well as the investigation of the impacts of human activities on river health, Shaying River in China between 2011 and 2015 was taken as a case study. Data on water environment, ecology, and habitat quality were collected by field investigations and then investigated by correlation analysis and principal component analysis. The SMI-P method was adopted to estimate the water ecological health condition. It was found that oxygen-consuming organic pollutants and nutrient salts were predominantly concentrated in the midstream and downstream sections, leading to severe pollution and degraded aquatic biodiversity. All monitored river sections were classified as the sub-healthy state or worse, while the Huaidian section exhibited the poorest conditions, with 100% of ratings falling into medium and sub-morbid categories. It was concluded that dam regulation, tributary water quality, and seasonal drivers like fertilizer use and river flow discharge, were the primary factors affecting the spatial variability of river ecological health. Furthermore, this paper has proposed a well-suited framework for the assessment of the water ecological health of dam-controlled rivers. This framework can be widely applied to similar river systems, providing valuable insights for effective management and conservation efforts.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Abstract
Substantially enhancing carbon mitigation ambition is a crucial step towards achieving the Paris climate goal. Yet this attempt is hampered by poor knowledge on the potential cost and ...benefit of emission mitigation for each emitter. Here we use a global economic model to assess the mitigation costs for 27 major emitting countries and regions, and further contrast the costs against the potential benefits of mitigation valued as avoided social cost of carbon and the mitigation ambition of each region. We find a strong negative spatial correlation between cost and benefit of mitigating each ton of carbon dioxide. Meanwhile, the relative suitability of carbon mitigation, defined as the ratio of normalized benefit to normalized cost, also shows a considerable geographical mismatch with the mitigation ambition of emitters indicated in their first submitted nationally determined contributions. Our work provides important information to improve concerted climate action and formulate more efficient carbon mitigation strategies.
In a globalized economy, production of goods can be disrupted by trade disputes. Yet the resulting impacts on carbon dioxide emissions and ambient particulate matter (PM
) related premature mortality ...are unclear. Here we show that in contrast to a free trade world, with the emission intensity in each sector unchanged, an extremely anti-trade scenario with current tariffs plus an additional 25% tariff on each traded product would reduce the global export volume by 32.5%, gross domestic product by 9.0%, carbon dioxide by 6.3%, and PM
-related mortality by 4.1%. The respective impacts would be substantial for the United States, Western Europe and China. A freer trade scenario would increase global carbon dioxide emission and air pollution due to higher levels of production, especially in developing regions with relatively high emission intensities. Global collaborative actions to reduce emission intensities in developing regions could help achieve an economic-environmental win-win state through globalization.
Computed tomography (CT) scan is frequently used to detect hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) in routine clinical practice. The aim of this study is to develop a deep-learning AI system to improve the ...diagnostic accuracy of HCC by analysing liver CT imaging data.
We developed a deep-learning AI system by training on CT images from 7512 patients at Henan Provincial Peoples' Hospital. Its performance was validated on one internal test set (Henan Provincial Peoples' Hospital, n = 385) and one external test set (Henan Provincial Cancer Hospital, n = 556). The area under the receiver-operating characteristic curve (AUROC) was used as the primary classification metric. Accuracy, sensitivity, specificity, precision, negative predictive value and F1 metric were used to measure the performance of AI systems and radiologists.
AI system achieved high performance in identifying HCC patients, with AUROC of 0.887 (95% CI 0.855-0.919) on the internal test set and 0.883 (95% CI 0.855-0.911) on the external test set. For internal test set, accuracy was 81.0% (76.8-84.8%), sensitivity was 78.4% (72.4-83.7%), specificity was 84.4% (78.0-89.6%) and F1 (harmonic average of precision and recall rate) was 0.824. For external test set, accuracy was 81.3% (77.8-84.5%), sensitivity was 89.4% (85.0-92.8%), specificity was 74.0% (68.5-78.9%) and F1 was 0.819. Compared with radiologists, AI system achieved comparable accuracy and F1 metric on internal test set (0.853 versus 0.818, P = 0.107; 0.863 vs. 0.824, P = 0.082) and external test set (0.805 vs. 0.793, P = 0.663; 0.810 vs. 0.814, P = 0.866). The predicted HCC risk scores by AI system in HCC patients with multiple tumours and high fibrosis stage were higher than those with solitary tumour and low fibrosis stage (tumour number: 0.197 vs. 0.138, P = 0.006; fibrosis stage: 0.183 vs. 0.127, P < 0.001). Radiologists' review showed that the accuracy of saliency heatmaps predicted by algorithms was 92.1% (95% CI: 89.2-95.0%).
AI system achieved high performance in the detection of HCC compared with a group of specialised radiologists. Further investigation by prospective clinical trials was necessitated to verify this model.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
•The CH4 fluxes from global forest soils are estimated.•MAT, MAP, soil BD, SOC, and TN were the key drivers of the forest soil CH4 fluxes.•The CH4 budget of global forest soils is 14.98 7.96–21.73 Tg ...CH4 yr−1.•Nearly 3.17% of the total area of global forest soils was a net CH4 source.•The global mean CH4 uptake in forest soils was 3.95 kg CH4 ha−1 yr−1.
Forest ecosystems play an important role in the global CH4 cycle. Understanding and quantifying the contribution and distribution of CH4 sinks and sources in global forest soils is vital for assessing realistic approaches to climate change mitigation. Here, we compiled a dataset of in situ global forest soil CH4 fluxes from published data, incorporating 772 case studies covering boreal (n = 12), temperate (n = 369), subtropical (n = 208), and tropical (n = 183) forests and spanning 1991–2020 as a basis to build the mixed-effect model. Using the screened best model, we identified the main drivers and predicted the global distribution of the forest soil CH4 flux. Our research revealed that global forest soil CH4 uptake decreased significantly with increasing mean annual temperature (MAT), soil bulk density (BD), soil organic carbon (SOC), and soil total nitrogen (TN) but increased significantly with increasing mean annual precipitation (MAP). The global mean CH4 uptake rate in forest soils was 3.95 ± 1.78 kg CH4 ha−1 yr−1, with the total sink of 14.98 ± 6.75 Tg CH4 yr−1. The soil CH4 sinks in temperate and tropical forests contributed 84 % to the total sink of global forests. The CH4 emission rate in global forest soils averaged 1.12 ± 1.11 kg CH4 ha−1 yr−1, with the total source of 0.14 ± 0.14 Tg CH4 yr−1. Nearly 3 % of the total area of global forest soils was a net CH4 source. In summary, we identified the key drivers of forest soil CH4 flux and improved previous estimates of the global CH4 budget in forest soils. These findings can support decision-making related to forest management and greenhouse gas restrictions.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
The global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has lasted for over 2 years now and has already caused millions of deaths. In COVID-19, leukocyte pyroptosis has been previously associated ...with both beneficial and detrimental effects, so its role in the development of this disease remains controversial. Using transcriptomic data (GSE157103) of blood leukocytes from 126 acute respiratory distress syndrome patients (ARDS) with or without COVID-19, we found that COVID-19 patients present with enhanced leukocyte pyroptosis. Based on unsupervised clustering, we divided 100 COVID-19 patients into two clusters (PYRcluster1 and PYRcluster2) according to the expression of 35 pyroptosis-related genes. The results revealed distinct pyroptotic patterns associated with different leukocytes in these PYRclusters. PYRcluster1 patients were in a hyperinflammatory state and had a worse prognosis than PYRcluster2 patients. The hyperinflammation of PYRcluster1 was validated by the results of gene set enrichment analysis (GSEA) of proteomic data (MSV000085703). These differences in pyroptosis between the two PYRclusters were confirmed by the PYRscore. To improve the clinical treatment of COVID-19 patients, we used least absolute shrinkage and selection operator (LASSO) regression to construct a prognostic model based on differentially expressed genes between PYRclusters (PYRsafescore), which can be applied as an effective prognosis tool. Lastly, we explored the upstream transcription factors of different pyroptotic patterns, thereby identifying 112 compounds with potential therapeutic value in public databases.
The ongoing trade war between the United States and China is having profound impacts on the global economy. As recent studies have found substantial amounts of carbon dioxide and air pollution ...embedded in the global supply chains, the Sino-US trade war may also affect emissions and health burdens worldwide, which remains poorly understood. Here, we estimate the potential changes in gross domestic product (GDP), anthropogenic emissions and particulate matter (PM2.5) related premature deaths worldwide under two Sino-US trade war scenarios. We find that for the US and China, the trade war would reduce their GDP and, less significantly, emissions and mortality, suggesting that the trade war is not an effective means of environmental protection. The trade war would increase both GDP and mortality in many developing regions, because of their increased production of goods targeted in the Sino-US trade war. Surprisingly, Western Europe and Latin America and Caribbean would have higher GDP but lower emissions and mortality, an economic and environmental win-win outcome as a net result of the complex changes in the global supply chains. Neighbour regions of the US and China such as Canada, Japan and Korea would also have higher GDP but lower mortality, because of reduced atmospheric transboundary transport from the US and China overcompensating for increased local emissions of these neighbours. The complex consequences of the Sino-US trade war highlight the strong inter-regional and economic-environmental linkage in support of a global collaborative strategy to foster economic growth and environmental protection.
Functional zoning is an important mechanism for achieving national park planning and management objective. Better functional zoning is of great significance to the protection of ecosystem legitimacy ...and integrity, the appropriate utilization of resources, community integration, and feasible management. In the present study, the proposed Qinghai Lake National Park is the research object. Based on the critical goal of ecological protection, the importance of ecosystem service functions and the ecological sensitivities were evaluated. The results showed that the ecosystem service functions and the ecological sensitivity of the whole region are high. Among them, lake, river and wetland as the most strictly protected ecosystems account for the highest proportion. Then this study divided the proposed Qinghai Lake National Park into five functional areas through grid calculations, spatial analysis and multifactor trade-off. The results indicated that the goal of functional zoning for national park is to maximize the overall utility of park protection value and its comprehensive functions based on its spatial units with different functions, management and control requirements. The zoning scheme addresses the lack of sustainable development in Qinghai Lake National Park due to ecological environmental changes and single-resource zoning with resource protection as the primary goal. This study can serve as a reference for spatial functional zoning methods of national land parks, nature reserves and other natural protected areas.
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EMUNI, FIS, FZAB, GEOZS, GIS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, MFDPS, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, SBMB, SBNM, UKNU, UL, UM, UPUK, VKSCE, ZAGLJ
Many hypotheses have been proposed to explain elevational species richness patterns; however, evaluating their importance remains a challenge, as mountains that are nested within different ...biogeographic regions have different environmental attributes. Here, we conducted a comparative study for trees, shrubs, herbs, and ferns along the same elevational gradient for 22 mountains worldwide, examining the performance of hypotheses of energy, tolerance, climatic variability, and spatial area to explain the elevational species richness patterns for each plant group. Results show that for trees and shrubs, energy-related factors exhibit greater explanatory power than other factors, whereas the factors that are associated with climatic variability performed better in explaining the elevational species richness patterns of herbs and ferns. For colder mountains, energy-related factors emerged as the main drivers of woody species diversity, whereas in hotter and wetter ecosystems, temperature and precipitation were the most important predictors of species richness along elevational gradients. For herbs and ferns, the variation in species richness was less than that of woody species. These findings provide important evidence concerning the generality of the energy theory for explaining the elevational species richness pattern of plants, highlighting that the underlying mechanisms may change among different growth form groups and regions within which mountains are nested.
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