Utilizing supply-demand bundles in Nature-based Recreation offers insights into specific strategies for sustainable tourism management

Balancing supply and demand in Nature-based Recreation (NbR) has the potential to yield co-benefits across multiple Ecosystem Services (ES), helping to make tourism activities more sustainable. However, a comprehensive understanding of supply-demand mismatches in NbR is challenging due to the complex interaction among various social, economic and ecological factors. This paper investigates mismatches in NbR supply and demand to provide insights for informing spatial and regional planning to achieve sustainable tourism. To this end, the paper uses a wide range of indicators such as biophysical attributes, accessibility and social indicators to map and assess NbR supply and demand, followed by the application of spatial statistics to analyse supply-demand mismatches. Cluster analysis was performed based on the supply-demand relationship to identify a typology of NbR ES across the study area in the north of Iran. The paper proposes an innovative application of recreation ES bundles with potential implications for sustainable tourism in a region marked as a hot spot for tourism. The analysis generated a typology of five bundles of NbR ES with differing recreational opportunities. Bundles 1 and 2, characterized by a supply surplus and substantial ecological value, are suitable for NbR activities such as camping, hiking, climbing, and birdwatching. In contrast, bundle 4 and 5 associated with urban centres, experience a supply deficit, making them less suitable for NbR. Bundle 3, characterized by a mixture of natural and productive lands, plays an important role in maintaining a balanced supply-demand state. This region holds potential for diverse forms of tourism, including rural and agricultural recreation such as farm tours and farm life experiences. Based on findings, the paper provides valuable insights for spatial and regional planning by proposing targeted strategies to sustainably manage tourism activities.

Mapping and assessing natural soundscape quality: An indicator-based model for landscape planning

Natural soundscape quality (NSQ) has been recognized as an essential cultural ecosystem service that contributes significantly to human health and well-being. It also stands as an indispensable component of environmental quality, especially for landscape aesthetic quality. However, an assessment tool for NSQ in landscape planning and environmental impact assessments is still absent. Therefore, this paper aims to address this gap by proposing an indicator-based model for assessing and quantifying NSQ in the Geographic Information System. The model characterizes NSQ based on Calmness and Vibrancy, and employs several indicators, sub-indicators, and respective metrics as proxies to quantify and map them spatially. The evaluation criteria of the model correspond to the general public's preferences for soundscape features. The case study results in Springe municipality, Germany, show that the relative values of NSQ are high in green spaces, including forests, grasslands, and shrublands, whereas they are low in open farmlands. The multiple natural sounds yield higher NSQ scores than the individual ones. The same soundscape compositions in forests and in urban parks exhibit higher NSQ scores than in other land cover types. In addition, the shares of relative values show similar distribution patterns among Calmness, Vibrancy, and NSQ according to land cover types and soundscape compositions. The evaluation results align with public values and preferences for soundscape features. Unlike subjectivist approaches, our user-independent methodology is easily transferable and reproducible. The results are comparable and communicable among the assessed areas. These endow the indicator-based model with the potential to be applied at various planning and management scales. The findings can help to incorporate soundscape evaluation into landscape planning and management systems, supporting sustainable landscape development, and providing valuable information for policy-, plan- and decision-making.

Sustainable governance of drinking water conservation areas based on adaptive thresholds

Drinking water quality is integral to the Sustainable Development Goals framework. At the present, China's drinking water conservation faces a number of challenges that are partially brought on by strict conservation measures that don't fully take into account human-land conflict and sustainable development. Taking the idea of adaptive governance, this study seeks to identify adaptive thresholds and adaptive solutions for compatible drinking water conservation and local development. Pressure and resistance to drinking water quality in its status, future potential, and adaptive thresholds were explored to identify sustainable governance for the Baimei Conservation Area, Fujian Province. Field research, local governance forums, and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model were utilized to explore the drinking water quality pressure and resistance to drinking water quality. In order to uncover potential future changes in pressure and resistance, suitability analyses and multi-scenario simulations were used to examine the status quo, pressure, and resistance scenarios. Adaptive thresholds were then identified through SWAT modeling of each scenario to guarantee the drinking water quality is greater than Class II in the Core Conservation Area and Class Ⅲ in 2nd-grade Conservation Area, respectively. The research finds that construction land development and farming are the key pressures on drinking water quality, and forests and wetlands are the primary resistances. The expansion of construction lands and the increased wetlands was centered on potential future scenarios because farming has no room for growth and forests are already heavily covered. The adaptive threshold of construction land expansion is identified to be 10% without new wetlands but can be 20% by adding 10% wetlands in subbasins, 5, 8, and 9. This study confirms the potential of adaptive sustainability for drinking water conservation areas. A similar analysis procedure can also be adapted to enhance adaptive governance for the sustainability of other conservation areas nationally and globally.

The impact of outdoor blue spaces on the health of the elderly: A systematic review

Research on natural health has identified the potential benefit of outdoor blue spaces for human health and wellbeing. However, the existing evidence has relatively limited attention to the elderly. This study aims to review the available evidence on outdoor blue spaces and health outcomes among older individuals and identify knowledge gaps. In accordance with the PRISMA guidelines, specific keywords were used to search for articles published in English from inception to October 2023. Five databases (Scopus, PubMed, Web of Science, CINAHL, and PsycINFO) were searched, and 22 studies were identified in this review. We classified articles based on elderly health as general health (e.g., self-reported, perceived health and wellbeing), physical health (e.g., physical activity, physical function index), and mental health and wellbeing (e.g., depression). The findings indicated a positive correlation between outdoor blue space and the health of the elderly. In terms of the characteristics of exposure to outdoor blue spaces, direct contact (e.g., sensory-based) has not been well documented compared to indirect contact (e.g., distance, percentage, region-based). Although encouraging, the available body of evidence is limited and lacks consistency. Future research is needed to provide complementary evidence between outdoor blue spaces and elderly health.

Shrub clearing and extensive livestock as a strategy for enhancing ecosystem services in degraded Mediterranean mid-mountain areas

Land abandonment in the Mediterranean mountains since the 20th century has led to a reduction of ecosystem services, due to revegetation and homogenization of the landscape. To counteract these effects, the regional administration of La Rioja in Spain initiated a Plan for Shrub Clearing (PSC) combined with extensive livestock grazing in 1986, which is still in action today. This study analyses the effects of pairing clearing with grazing in an experimental area of the Leza valley (Iberian System) on: (i) the landscape structure and structural diversity; (ii) the production of pasture; (iii) fire control; (iv) soil organic carbon sequestration (also considering soil environmental types); (v) surface water resources. The results show that: (i) a more fragmented landscape with greater diversity is created; (ii) grazing land is almost doubled in alkaline soils and four-fold in siliceous soils; (iii) fires are considerably reduced, with the mean surface fire spread falling from 34.1 ha/year from 1968 to 1985, to 1.2 ha/year between 1986 and 2022; (iv) regenerated post-clearance grazing soils sequester more organic carbon than that of shrublands, especially older clearings on alkaline soils (55.3 % more); (v) clearing increases hydrological connectivity and water resources. The conclusion is that managing the Mediterranean mid-mountains could be a very effective strategy to improve the supply of certain ecosystem services and improve the current socio-economic perspective of these marginal areas in a context of Global Change. The PSC also contributes to local development by increasing livestock numbers.

Enhancing multifunctionality in European boreal forests: The potential role of Triad landscape functional zoning

Land-use policies aim at enhancing the sustainable use of natural resources. The Triad approach has been suggested to balance the social, ecological, and economic demands of forested landscapes. The core idea is to enhance multifunctionality at the landscape level by allocating landscape zones with specific management priorities, i.e., production (intensive management), multiple use (extensive management), and conservation (forest reserves). We tested the efficiency of the Triad approach and identified the respective proportion of above-mentioned zones needed to enhance multifunctionality in Finnish forest landscapes. Through a simulation and optimization framework, we explored a range of scenarios of the three zones and evaluated how changing their relative proportion (each ranging from 0 to 100%) impacted landscape multifunctionality, measured by various biodiversity and ecosystem service indicators. The results show that maximizing multifunctionality required around 20% forest area managed intensively, 50% extensively, and 30% allocated to forest reserves. In our case studies, such landscape zoning represented a good compromise between the studied multifunctionality components and maintained 61% of the maximum achievable net present value (i.e., total timber economic value). Allocating specific proportion of the landscape to a management zone had distinctive effects on the optimized economic or multifunctionality values. Net present value was only moderately impacted by shifting from intensive to extensive management, while multifunctionality benefited from less intensive and more diverse management regimes. This is the first study to apply Triad in a European boreal forest landscape, highlighting the usefulness of this approach. Our results show the potential of the Triad approach in promoting forest multifunctionality, as well as a strong trade-off between net present value and multifunctionality. We conclude that simply applying the Triad approach does not implicitly contribute to an overall increase in forest multifunctionality, as careful forest management planning still requires clear landscape objectives.

Evaluating ecosystem service changes in a frame of transportation development in Istanbul

Rapid urbanization and growing transportation infrastructure in cities negatively affect ecosystems and their functions. Quantifying these effects is a prerequisite for integrating environmental considerations into all phases of transportation planning. However, in many developing or newly developed countries, research is lacking that helps to understand and manage the ecological impacts of transportation construction under local conditions. Presented research contributed to filling this gap by investigating the implications of growing transportation infrastructure on three ecosystem services: local climate regulation, erosion control, and photosynthesis potential. As a case study, we used spatial indicators to quantify changes in the supply of ecosystem services caused by the development of the 3^rd Bosporus Bridge and its connecting highway in Istanbul, Turkiye. Our results indicate a substantial decrease in ecosystem services close to the transportation infrastructure, including a decrease in local climate regulation (- 5.4%), an increase in erosion (+ 9.4%), and a decline in photosynthesis potential or vegetation health (- 28%). Additionally, hotspots of ES supply change were detected. This study provides a blueprint for planning and impact mitigation studies.

Planning a water-constrained ecological restoration pattern to enhance sustainable landscape management in drylands

Ecological restoration is an important approach to improving landscape sustainability. However, ecological restoration in drylands is strongly limited by water resources. Therefore, a technical route for ecological restoration in drylands that creates sustainable landscapes based on those water constraints is needed. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit framework named "Constraint-Pattern-Benefit" to plan ecological restoration patterns in Inner Mongolia, China. Based on a prediction of the ecosystem service (ES) increase under limited evapotranspiration as a water constraint, we constructed 5 landscape sustainability-related strategies with 100 ecological restoration scenarios, which considered fragmentation of restoration locations, distance to city, water consumption, and the allocation scale to determine the spatial arrangement of ecological restoration. Results show that the ES increase potential of ecological restoration under water constraints is distributed in the center of Inner Mongolia. The multi-objective scenario simultaneously achieves 59.1% water yield, 74.2% soil conservation, 57.2% sand fixation, and 52.8% carbon sequestration with 50% restored landscape. Considering the indicators of fragmentation, water consumption, and distance to city decreases the restored landscape fragmentation from 0.44 to 0.26, improves the restoration efficiency by 14.41%, and increases the beneficiary population by 35.5%, respectively. Small-scale allocation can further increase the ES realization efficiency, which is on average 4.8% higher at the city scale than at the provincial scale. Moreover, this approach focuses on the sustainable effect of the spatial arrangement on dryland landscapes at different scales, which provides methodological support for improving the sustainability of drylands.

Simulating with a combination of RUSLE GIS and sediment delivery ratio for soil restoration

Erosion by water is the main cause of land degradation. Landscapes degraded by erosion need to be restored in many respects, and particularly in terms of ecosystem services. From an economic and management perspective, care is needed to select priority areas and determine the means to be applied to restore them. Globally, the model most commonly used to produce scenarios for the prevention of soil losses is the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE). This study of the subbasin of the Sulakyurt Dam Basin in Turkey aims (1) to identify the distribution of soil losses over time and by location, and (2) to grade the priority areas for the prevention of soil losses by means of a simulation. The average potential soil losses in the area under study are estimated at 42.35 t ha^-1 year^-1, and the average actual losses at 39.49 t ha^-1 year^-1. According to the simulation, 27.61% of the study area (2782 ha) is of the highest priority for soil restoration. In our study, forests have the highest soil losses, which is contrary to the natural protection that forests provide against erosion. The high rates are due to the slope, the forest area is very steep. So it is the slope factor that outweighs the vegetation cover factor. Of the forest areas, 41.74% (1766 ha) falls within the areas of highest priority. The study serves as a guide for landscape planning and the determination of erosion risk in restoration efforts, and for identifying the methods to be adopted during the restoration work to reduce the loss of soil.

Virtual participatory mapping of nature-based solutions in the Grande de Tárcoles River basin, Costa Rica: Connecting diverse knowledge systems in a context of physical immobility

Co-design processes are of key importance in planning and implementing Nature-based Solutions (NBS), but require boundary management between diverse holders of local, practical and scientific knowledge. Participatory and map-based planning tools, such as Geodesign workshops, can facilitate such boundary management through mobilising knowledge holders, and translating and negotiating between different perspectives. The COVID-19 pandemic hindered physical mobility, but offered an, albeit unintended, opportunity to explore new ways of virtual mobility for facilitating boundary management in NBS co-design through digital participatory tools. This short communication aims to demonstrate how a spatial planning process for NBS can be facilitated in an online context. We draw on an international case study for co-designing NBS in Costa Rica, conducted during the severe lock-down restriction of the COVID-19 pandemic. This novel approach showcases how physical presence and movement is replaced by virtual mobility enabled through an online geographic map-based environment that allowed participants to communicate their opinions and co-create local and regional NBS actions. The case study included developing and testing a co-design tool to understand and map local perceptions of social-ecological problems, and an actual co-design process for siting NBS options and jointly exploring their implications. We present two levels of the process: 1) the adaptation of the co-design tool, and 2) the use and usefulness of the co-design tool. Our evaluation shows that the tool served its purpose well and provided useful support to local stakeholders. We recommend to test further strategical combinations of in-person and virtual methods in NBS co-design processes to improve NBS planning and implementation.

Distributional environmental justice of residential walking space: The lens of urban ecosystem services supply and demand

Urban ecosystem services (UES), as an important concept in nature-based solutions, can effectively mitigate adverse environmental burdens and have great potential in addressing environmental justice issues. However, few studies linking UES with environmental justice have considered both supply and demand sides of UES, particularly at the spatial scale of residential walking space. Against this backdrop, we investigated the distributional justice of supply and demand for urban cooling, flood mitigation, air purification, and outdoor recreation in residential walking spaces in Shanghai among socially vulnerable groups (i.e., elderly residents, children, females, low-income residents, no-hukou residents, and ethnic minorities). We found that (1) the UES supply of residential walking space was much lower than that of non-residential walking space, while the UES demand was much higher than that of non-residential walking space. (2) Higher proportions of ethnic minorities, no-hukou residents, and females in Shanghai were positively correlated with several UES demands but were not positively correlated with ES supply, indicating a higher possibility of unsatisfied UES demand for these disadvantaged groups. Future urban blue-green space planning should pay more attention to the spatial allocation of blue-green space, especially placing more blue-green space around residential walking spaces with high UES demand and with a high proportion of socially disadvantaged groups.

Access to urban green spaces in Hannover: An exploration considering age groups, recreational nature qualities and potential demand

City dwellers' accessibility of urban green spaces (UGS) has recently gained immense interest in research and policy. Related scientific studies thus far have focused primarily on spatial distances, largely missing considerations of UGS qualities. We analysed the entire UGS setting of Hannover considering the recreational nature quality and potential demands to identify age-appropriate green spaces by applying a geographic information system analysis of several data sets. Additionally, we assessed the accessibility of UGS for different age groups, varying recreational nature qualities, and potential demands. Results indicate that children and elderly people have poor access to UGS that offers age-related requirements to enable unrestricted nature-based recreation. Nature quality and age-related requirements play a significant role in the assessment of UGS for recreation and accessibility. We conclude that detected vulnerabilities regarding age-related recreation in cities are anchors to mainstream the issue and enhance future planning practices and research.

Identifying ecosystem service value and potential loss of wilderness areas in China to support post-2020 global biodiversity conservation

Preserving wilderness areas is one of the key goals in the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework(GBF). However, far too little attention has been paid to identifying wilderness conservation priorities on the national scale. In this study, we developed a methodological framework to evaluate the ecosystem service values, potential loss and conservation priorities of wilderness areas in China, providing guidance for wilderness conservation. First, we assessed the conservation value of wilderness areas and found that wilderness areas provided more ecosystem services than non-wilderness areas per unit area in most ecoregions. Then we identified threatened wilderness areas under multiple scenarios due to land use and land cover change. We found that 5.82 % of the existing wilderness areas were projected to be lost by 2100. Finally, wilderness conservation priorities were identified considering both conservation values and potential loss, and 11.24 % of existing wilderness areas were highlighted as conservation priorities. This methodological framework could be applied to other countries to support post-2020 global biodiversity conservation.

Connectivity, landscape structure, and plant diversity across agricultural landscapes: novel insight into effective ecological network planning

Natural habitats in rural and urban areas are increasingly fragmented and altered by human impacts that are limiting the animal and plant dispersal process. Fragmentation and isolation can be reversed by restoring landscape connectivity through effective Ecological Network (EN) planning. However, most of the studies analyzing the influence of connectivity and landscape structure on biodiversity are focused on animals, while the understanding of their interplaying role on plant diversity remains limited. We studied the relationships between α and β diversity pattern and landscape structure and connectivity in the nodes of an EN developed in agricultural landscapes, as a part of regional landscape planning framework in Friuli Venezia Giulia region (North-East of Italy). As an innovation, the study aims at parsing the interacting effect of landscape structure, surrounding habitats and nodes, and structural connectivity on EN plant diversity at two specific scales of investigation i.e., the habitat and the node scale. The habitat was the basic ecological unit, while the node was the basic cartographical unit for the EN mapping (multi-habitat or mono-habitat nodes). A total of 443 plant species were collected across 219 sample plots, in 14 different habitats and 87 nodes of the EN. We found that high node connectivity leads to higher species richness (α-diversity) but also increases plant community similarity (i.e., low β-diversity) at both scales. The effect of landscape structure showed differing trends depending on the habitat. In general, landscape composition of semi-natural land cover (i.e., hedgerows, watercourses) showed a positive effect on species diversity as opposed to that of the configuration of anthropogenic elements on both scales. Our results provided crucial information on the landscape processes useful to improving biodiversity conservation by EN. Our findings suggest that i) improving connectivity within ENs favors α plant diversity ii) different habitats have different sensibility to landscape structure iii) semi-natural land cover around nodes improve plant diversity; iv) planning both mono-habitat and multi-habitats nodes, increases the biodiversity conserved therein; v) nodes with more compact shapes are to be preferred.

Advancing Sustainable Development Goals with localised nature-based solutions: Opportunity spaces in the Lahn river landscape, Germany

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are recognized as promising actions to alleviate societal challenges and achieve the United Nation's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). One scientific challenge to implement NBS in practice is to locate areas suitable for an effective implementation of NBS (opportunity spaces). Opportunity spaces either already host NBS that need to be safeguarded or restored, or provide the socio-ecological conditions for establishing new NBS. Complex methods have been proposed to model potential locations of selected NBS, but they are often too data and resource intensive to be applied in practice for landscape planning. The aim of this article is to put forward a pragmatic method for identifying NBS opportunity spaces that contribute to advance multiple SDGs, and to test its application in a participatory, extended peer-review process in the Lahn river landscape, Germany. Our method includes: (i) synthesizing a generic catalogue of NBS in river landscapes, (ii) estimating the potential of NBS to achieve simultaneously Lahn development goals (LDGs) and SDGs, and (iii) applying key spatial indicators and best available data to explore opportunity spaces for selected NBS. The generic catalogue provides a systematic overview of 650 individual NBS for river landscapes and their respective potentials for addressing LDGs and SDGs. The NBS Renaturalising floodplains through land use changes, Revitalising historic floodplains, and Creating buffer strips are those actions contributing to the greatest number of local SDGs (locally adapted SDGs that include LDGs). Results of the spatial analysis in the Lahn river landscape showed about 4739 ha of areas where NBS were already in place and need to be safeguarded and additional 1323 ha with opportunities for further NBS creation. The proposed method presents a robust and transferable approach that facilitates spatial mapping of NBS to local SDGs for planning practitioners facing time and resource constraints.

Hay transfer is a nature-based and sustainable solution for restoring grassland biodiversity

As we enter the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration, there is an increasing need for finding nature-based solutions for the restoration of grasslands across the globe. Besides seed sowing, alternative restoration methods that build on locally available propagule sources, such as hay transfer, should also be considered and given high priority. The transfer of hay from a donor site to the restoration site serves a double aim by introducing target species and suppressing weeds. We tested the applicability of hay transfer in restoring species-rich grassland in a former cropland in Hungary, over six years of post-restoration monitoring from 2015 to 2020. We sampled the plant species composition of the three donor sites (target state of restoration) and the area surrounding the restoration site. We found that six year after restoration, a species-rich grassland developed with 42 successfully established specialist species that had a cover of 45%. Most specialist species became established from the hay from the second to the sixth year, but the surrounding areas also provided additional propagule sources. Among the eight analysed functional traits, seed mass of the transferred species was the best predictor of the establishment of specialists, and we found that small-seeded species had an establishment advantage in the first years after restoration. Our results suggest that hay transfer can be a suitable nature-based solution for local grassland restoration projects and its potential should be utilized especially in regions where suitable donor sites are present in sufficient quantity and quality.

Quantifying spatial non-stationarity in the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ecosystem services: An example in the New Zealand hill country

Knowing how landscape structure affects the provision of ecosystem services (ES) is an important first step toward better landscape planning. Because landscape structure is often heterogenous across space, modelling the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ES must account for spatial non-stationarity. This paper examines the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ES using a hill country and steep-land case farm in New Zealand. Indicators derived from land cover and topographical data such as Largest Patch Index (LPI), Contrast Class Edge (CCE), Edge Density (ED), and Terrain slope (SLOPE) were used to examine the landscape's structure and pattern. Measures of pasture productivity, soil erosion control, and water supply were derived with InVEST tools and spatial analysis in a GIS. Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) was used to evaluate the relationship between indicators of landscape structure and the provisioning of ES. Other regression models, including Ordinary Least Square (OLS) and Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR), were carried out to evaluate the performance of MGWR. Results showed that landscape patterns significantly affect the supply of all mapped ES, and this varies across the landscape, dependent on the pattern of topographical features and land cover pattern and structure. MWGR outperformed other OLS and GWR in terms of explanatory power of the ES determinants and had a better ability to deal with the presence of spatial autocorrelation. Spatially and quantitatively detailed variations of the relationship between landscape structure and the provision of ES provide a scientific basis to inform the design of sustainable multifunctional landscapes. Information derived from this analysis can be used for spatial planning of farmed landscapes to promote multiple ES which meet multiple sustainable development objectives.

Evaluating the role of spatial landscape literacy in public participation processes and opinions on environmental issues and ecosystem services

Little is known about how spatial literacy influences mapping and decision-making related to environmental management and ecosystem services. We assessed the role of spatial landscape literacy in participatory environmental management and ecosystem service assessments in peri-urban Bogota, Colombia. Spatial landscape literacy (SL) was evaluated by testing stakeholder's ability to locate specific landscapes and landmarks. We then assessed if opinions on environmental decisions and ecosystem services were significantly related to SL. We used an online instrument to capture 2,397 respondent's socioeconomic characteristics, SL, ecosystem service perceptions, and opinions concerning relevant environmental issues. We evaluated and measured respondents' self-perceived SL and ability to locate four landscapes in an integrated online map. Positional accuracy was calculated using a Spatial Landscape Literacy Index (SLI). We then tested for effects of socio-demographics on SLI, modeled the relationship between socio-demographics and SL, and tested the relationship between respondents' SL and their opinions on relevant environmental issues and ecosystem services. We found that about 75% of the respondents correctly located 2 of the 4 landscapes. The SLI model was also poorly predicted by socio-demographic variables. However, we found significant relationships between SLI and opinions concerning the environment. No relationship was found between respondents' levels of active participation in local governance and SLI. Overall, SL was little affected by education levels. Participatory processes using maps should ideally measure SL and not assume a priori that participants are spatially literate. Further research is needed to evaluate how spatial technologies and understanding stakeholder's values towards the environment can democratize participatory-based decision-making.

Gardening can relieve human stress and boost nature connection during the COVID-19 pandemic

The COVID-19 pandemic has severely disrupted social life. Gardens and yards have seemingly risen as a lifeline during the pandemic. Here, we investigated the relationship between people and gardening during the COVID-19 pandemic and what factors influenced the ability of people to garden. We examined survey responses (n = 3,743) from gardeners who reported how the pandemic had affected personal motivations to garden and their use of their gardens, alongside pandemic-related challenges, such as food access during the first wave of COVID-19 (May-Aug 2020). The results show that for the respondents, gardening was overwhelmingly important for nature connection, individual stress release, outdoor physical activity and food provision. The importance of food provision and economic security were also important for those facing greater hardships from the pandemic. While the literature on gardening has long shown the multiple benefits of gardening, we report on these benefits during a global pandemic. More research is needed to capture variations in public sentiment and practice - including those who do little gardening, have less access to land, and reside in low-income communities particularly in the global south. Nevertheless, we argue that gardening can be a public health strategy, readily accessible to boost societal resilience to disturbances.

Biodiversity and ecosystem services mapping: Can it reconcile urban and protected area planning?

Land-use changes, especially urbanization, have largely impacted the capacity of ecosystems to deliver ecosystem services (ES) on which human wellbeing depends. The current sectorial landscape and territorial planning approaches that separately address protected areas and urban areas have proven ineffective in conserving biodiversity. To address this important challenge, integrated territorial planning has been claimed to be able to better reconcile interests between nature conservation and urban planning, and ES supply and demand mapping may be a useful tool for such purposes. In this study, we quantitatively mapped biodiversity and the supply and demand of eight ES along an urban-rural gradient in the region of Madrid (Spain). Then, we clustered the municipalities in this gradient into four groups based on their common biodiversity and ES supply and demand characteristics. Additionally, we reviewed the urban plans from these municipalities and the management plans of three protected areas, analysed the references to ES in the plans, and searched for potential conflicts between urban and protected area planning aims. We found that municipalities with highly coupled ES supply and demand are in high altitude areas, coinciding with protected areas, while in urban areas, the ES demand exceeds the supply. Municipalities exhibiting a high demand for regulating ES usually include them in their plans, while municipalities with a high supply of regulating ES do not. Given the several conflicts between protected areas and urban planning that we detected, we discuss the utility of mapping biodiversity and ES supply and demand beyond administrative boundaries to overcome the challenge of integrating spatial planning approaches, especially in the context of urban-rural gradients and megacities. We also explore the utility of these methods for coordinating urban planning tools to achieve integrated territorial planning.

An ecological restoration assessment integrating multi-criteria decision analysis with landscape sensitivity analysis for a hydroelectric power plant project: the Tokat-Niksar case

Due to Turkey's reliance on imported electricity, it has been using hydroelectric power plants (HPPs) to cover some of its electrical energy needs since 2011. However, HPP projects, which do not take landscape sensitivity into account, cause the ecological integrity of the basins and the ecosystem structure to deteriorate. This study presents the Tokat-Niksar HPP project field example in Turkey's Central Black Sea region with its steep slopes, rich forest and creek vegetation, protected endemic plants and wildlife, cultural heritage dating back to 3000 BC agricultural activities, and long-established local culture. The study, in fact, aims to develop a landscape restoration plan that considers the sensitivity of landscapes in the HPP project area. For this purpose, a landscape sensitivity analysis consisting of water, habitat, visibility, erosion functions, and multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) determining priority of functions conducted with experts were performed. According to the results, the water function was found to have the highest, and the visibility the lowest priority in the ranking. Consequently, 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4th-degree sensitive areas with very high, high, and moderate landscape sensitivity were determined by weighted sum function by considering the priority of each landscape function, and accordingly, a five-stage landscape restoration model was developed including soil protection, areas to be protected, erosion control, vegetation screening, and creek reclamation. This study presents a framework for sustainable landscape restoration solutions in the town by combining landscape sensitivity analysis via MCDA.

Bridging the science-practice gaps in nature-based solutions: A riverfront planning in China

Prominent gaps exist between science and practice in the field of nature-based solutions (NBS) worldwide, with relatively well formulated concepts but less clear application procedures. China urgently needs to address this gap because many so called NBS practices advance rapidly nowadays, including river landscapes. Advocating planning as a bridging procedure in China's top down governance system, this study introduces NBS planning for the Jialing River in Wusheng County to address three challenges: how to transform the riverfront planning from specialized to holistic, how to effectively communicate NBS in planning, and how to incorporate both scientific results and local wisdom into NBS decision-making. A planning scope was negotiated to incorporate holistic solutions. Five NBS paradigms were identified for better communication, and then spatially allocated with specific design guidelines and governance strategies. Our pilot study calls for reflection on the communication of NBS to the public, and alternative models of NBS implementations customized to different government regimes.

Planning and governing nature-based solutions in river landscapes: Concepts, cases, and insights

Nature-based solutions (NBS), understood as actions that use ecosystem processes to address societal needs, can play important roles to future-proof river landscape development for people and nature. However, knowledge gaps exist how NBS can be planned and implemented at landscape scales. This Special Issue brings together insights and experiences from studies of assessing, planning, and implementing NBS in river landscapes in Europe and beyond. It addresses three research fields: (i) NBS effects, looking at the effectiveness of NBS to achieve ecological, social, and/or economic outcomes, (ii) NBS planning, focusing on approaches for planning and designing NBS, and (iii) NBS governance, relating to governance and business models for implementation. The twelve contributions deliver evidence on how NBS outperform conventional, rather technical solutions, provide guidance and tools to operationalize the NBS concept into practice, and showcase successful governance models of NBS in different contexts. The editorial ends with an outlook on further research needs.

Planning nature-based solutions: Principles, steps, and insights

Nature-based solutions (NBS) find increasing attention as actions to address societal challenges through harnessing ecological processes, yet knowledge gaps exist regarding approaches to landscape planning with NBS. This paper aims to provide suggestions of how planning NBS can be conceptualized and applied in practice. We develop a framework for planning NBS by merging insights from literature and a case study in the Lahn river landscape, Germany. Our framework relates to three key criteria that define NBS, and consists of six steps of planning: Co-define setting, Understand challenges, Create visions and scenarios, Assess potential impacts, Develop solution strategies, and Realize and monitor. Its implementation is guided by five principles, namely Place-specificity, Evidence base, Integration, Equity, and Transdisciplinarity. Drawing on the empirical insights from the case study, we suggest suitable methods and a checklist of supportive procedures for applying the framework in practice. Taken together, our framework can facilitate planning NBS and provides further steps towards mainstreaming.

Fine-grained assessment of greenspace satisfaction at regional scale using content analysis of social media and machine learning

Assessing perceptions of green spaces is of considerable interest to developers aiming for sustainable urbanization. However, there are numerous challenges facing the development of a rapid, effective, and fine-grained method to assess large-scale greenspace perception. Survey-based studies of perception yielded detailed assessments of green spaces but lacked regional comparisons. The few big-data-based studies of greenspace perception lacked fine-grained explorations. Therefore, we used content analysis to interpret perception in two ways: perceived frequency and perceived satisfaction, including overall park satisfaction and satisfaction with individual landscape features. We analyzed social media posts about urban parks in Beijing, China. A structured lexicon was developed to capture detailed landscape features, and machine learning was employed to assess satisfaction levels. Both of these techniques performed well in interpreting greenspace satisfaction from volunteered textual comments. A detailed study of 50 parks demonstrated that overall park satisfaction was positive. Additionally, individual landscape features were more influential than frequency of landscape features in affecting satisfaction. Our framework confirmed the potential of online comments as complementary to traditional surveys in assessing greenspace perception, while enhancing our understanding of this perception on a regional scale. Practically, this study can facilitate sustainable policy-making regarding urban green spaces, specifically through offering a structured landscape-feature lexicon, rapid regional comparison of various parks, and an emphasis on quality rather than quantity of landscape features.

A demand index for recreational ecosystem services associated with urban parks in Beijing, China

Good planning for urban parks requires an analysis of the quantitative relationship between the distribution of an urban population and the demand for recreational ecosystem services (RES). A barrier to RES quantification is the lack of connections between survey materials and spatial data. This study developed a logistic regression model for the demand for RES associated with urban parks based on the characteristics of individual visitor and their willingness to visit parks. The model was fitted by a questionnaire survey completed by 4096 park visitors and was used to predict the RES demand in 317 sub-districts of Beijing. Results showed that: (1) park visitors rated sightseeing as the most important, followed by jogging, boating, partying, cycling, and fishing in Beijing's parks; (2) high-income and older residents had higher willingness to visit the parks than did low-income and younger park visitors; (3) the fringe areas between the urban and rural regions showed a relatively low demand index for RES. This study exhibits a feasible method to predict RES demand based on surveys and statistical data. Our research suggests that improving park planning necessitates developing a diverse recreational infrastructure, a tradeoff among different stakeholders, and spatial optimization for sustainable urban development. The results provide a potential tool that can be used to assess the balance of RES in a scenario of urbanization and population growth.

Using Spatially Targeted Conservation to Evaluate Nitrogen Reduction and Economic Opportunities for Best Management Practice Placement in Agricultural Landscapes

The US Cornbelt leads North American production of intensively managed, row-crop corn and soybeans. While highly productive, agricultural management in the region is often linked with nonpoint source nutrient pollution that negatively impacts water quality. Presently, conservation programs designed to install best management practices (BMPs) to mitigate agricultural nonpoint source pollution have not been targeted to those areas of the landscape that contribute disproportionately to surface water quality concerns. We used an innovative spatially targeted conservation protocol coupled with a GIS-based landscape planning tool to evaluate the cost and effect on water quality from nitrate-nitrogen loss under alternative landscape scenarios in an Iowa watershed. Outputs indicate large reductions in watershed-level nitrate-nitrogen loss could be achieved through coordinated placement of BMPs on high-contributing parcels with limited reduction of cultivated land, resulting in improved surface water quality at relatively low economic costs. For example, one scenario, which added wetlands, cover crops, and saturated buffers in the watershed, required the removal of <5% of cultivated area to reduce nitrate-nitrogen loss by an estimated 49%, exceeding the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy goal for enhancing water quality. Annualized establishment and management costs of landscape scenarios that met the nonpoint source nitrogen reduction goal varied from $3.16 to $3.19 million (2017 US dollars). These results support our hypothesis that water quality can be improved by targeting high-contributing parcels, and highlights the potential to minimize tradeoffs by coupling targeted conservation and planning tools to help stakeholders achieve water quality outcomes within agricultural landscapes.

Classifying private landowners to improve understanding of management decisions and conservation opportunities in urbanizing forested landscapes

Viewed as coupled natural and human systems, urbanizing forested landscapes exhibit fascinating and complex dynamics, where landowner decisions and biophysical processes together influence conservation and development outcomes. To improve understanding of land management decisions and conservation opportunities on private lands in these landscapes, we developed a landowner typology that accounts for heterogeneity among landowners that goes beyond ownership objectives and investigated its usefulness in predicting individual private landowners' stated intentions to implement diverse land management actions. Using survey responses collected from private landowners in two metropolitan areas in Maine, USA, we focused on understanding differences in owners' stated likelihood of implementing four conservation practices (i.e., forest management plan, conservation easement, water quality protection, and wildlife habitat conservation) and three land tenure actions (i.e., land sales and large and small subdivisions). Cluster analysis based on measures of place attachment values, stewardship beliefs, and forest production objectives revealed four distinct landowner classes that, in turn, increased the explanatory power of our predictive models of management intentions. Our findings support consideration of heterogeneity beyond production objectives to improve understanding of landowner decision-making, the design and performance of conservation programs, and engagement with landowners. Adjusting data, analysis, and communication strategies to recognize these multiple motivations of landowners has potential to advance the science and practice of conserving forested landscapes.

A study on the determination of the natural park's sustainable tourism potential

The surface site of Yesilyuva Nature Park encompasses natural, social, economic, and cultural characteristics and has become a marker of the region's natural and cultural heritage. To support the preservation of this site, promotional activities should be planned. In this study, because of tourism and related opinions of residents and visitors alike in terms of their natural determination, an important cultural and historical feature is aimed at evaluating the tourism potential of Yesilyuva Nature Park. This framework is designed to establish prospective tourism sustainability. As a result, Yesilyuva Nature Park's natural and cultural properties have been determined to be suitable for sustainable tourism activities using geographic information systems (GIS). This protection in the field, which balances sustainability and landscape design, will provide for the development of tourism activities. In the Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats (SWOT) analysis and survey, residents and visitors reported that the most important feature of the Yesilyuva Nature Park was its natural beauty. Visitors often come to observe traditional and natural life and to engage in tourism activities. All the data, which includes maps derived from GIS, represents landscape planning for sustainable tourism areas in Yesilyuva Nature Park.

Riparian vegetation as an indicator of riparian condition: Detecting departures from historic condition across the North American West

Floodplain riparian ecosystems support unique vegetation communities and high biodiversity relative to terrestrial landscapes. Accordingly, estimating riparian ecosystem health across landscapes is critical for sustainable river management. However, methods that identify local riparian vegetation condition, an effective proxy for riparian health, have not been applied across broad, regional extents. Here we present an index to assess reach-scale (500 m segment) riparian vegetation condition across entire drainage networks within large, physiographically-diverse regions. We estimated riparian vegetation condition for 53,250 km of perennial streams and rivers, 25,685 km in Utah, and 27,565 km in twelve watersheds of the interior Columbia River Basin (CRB), USA. We used nationally available, existing land cover classification derived from 30 m Landsat imagery (LANDFIRE EVT) and a modeled estimate of pre-European settlement land cover (LANDFIRE BpS). The index characterizes riparian vegetation condition as the ratio of existing native riparian vegetation cover to pre-European settlement riparian vegetation cover at a given reach. Roughly 62% of Utah and 48% of CRB watersheds showed significant (>33%) to large (>66%) departure from historic condition. Riparian vegetation change was predominantly caused by human land-use impacts (development and agriculture), or vegetation change (native riparian to invasive or upland vegetation types) that likely resulted from flow and disturbance regime alteration. Through comparisons to ground-based classification results, we estimate the existing vegetation component of the index to be 85% accurate. Our assessments yielded riparian condition maps that will help resource managers better prioritize sites and treatments for reach-scale conservation and restoration activities.

A procedure of landscape services assessment based on mosaics of patches and boundaries

We develop a procedure for assessing the environmental value of landscape mosaics that simultaneously considers the values of land use patches and the values of the boundaries between them. These boundaries indicate the ecological interactions between the patches. A landscape mosaic is defined as a set of patches and the boundaries between them and corresponds to a spatial pattern of ecological interactions. The procedure is performed in two steps: (i) an environmental assessment of land use patches by means of a function that integrates values based on the goods and services the patches provide, and (ii) an environmental valuation of mosaics using a function that integrates the environmental values of their patches and the types and frequencies of the boundaries between them. This procedure allows us to measure how changes in land uses or in their spatial arrangement cause variations in the environmental value of landscape mosaics and therefore in that of the whole landscape. The procedure was tested in the Sierra Norte of Madrid (central Spain). The results show that the environmental values of the landscape depend not only on the land use patches but also on the values associated with the pattern of the boundaries within the mosaics. The results also highlight the importance of the boundaries between land use patches as determinants of the goods and services provided by the landscape.

Landscape character assessment with GIS using map-based indicators and photographs in the relationship between landscape and roads

Planning and monitoring of landscapes cannot be reduced to its outstanding features, but must take into account all its characteristics. In this context, the relationship of landscape with roads is of particular importance, because roads alter the territory's environmental resources but also constitute a resource through which the individual comes into contact with the landscape. The aim of this work is to design a methodology to evaluate both the character and the scenic quality of the landscape as viewed from motorways and to provide measures to assess whether the motorway conveys the character of the landscape of which it forms part. The main contribution of this research consists of assessing landscape character through a novel series of map-based indicators and combining the findings with a photo-based method of assessing visual landscape quality. The method has been applied to a case study around a motorway in Madrid Region (Spain). Landscape character values regarding coherence, complexity, naturalness, visual scale, disturbance, historicity, and ephemera are obtained using Geographic Information Systems. Additionally, the landscape quality results derived using photographs allow the incorporation of the user's perception at a local scale.

Geotechnology-Based Modeling to Optimize Conservation of Forest Network in Urban Area

Forest network development in urban areas faces the challenge from forest fragmentation, human-induced disturbances, and scarce land resources. Here, we proposed a geotechnology-based modeling to optimize conservation of forest network by a case study of Wuhan, China. The potential forest network and their priorities were assessed using an improved least-cost path model and potential utilization efficiency estimation. The modeling process consists of four steps: (i) developing species assemblages, (ii) identifying core forest patches, (iii) identifying potential linkages among core forest patches, and (iv) demarcating forest networks. As a result, three species assemblages, including mammals, pheasants, and other birds, were identified as the conservation targets of urban forest network (UFN) in Wuhan, China. Based on the geotechnology-based model, a forest network proposal was proposed to fulfill the connectivity requirements of selected species assemblages. The proposal consists of seven forest networks at three levels of connectivity, named ideal networks, backbone networks, and comprehensive network. The action priorities of UFN plans were suggested to optimize forest network in the study area. Additionally, a total of 45 forest patches with important conservation significance were identified as prioritized stepping-stone patches in the forest network development. Urban forest conserve was also suggested for preserving woodlands with priority conservation significance. The presented geotechnology-based modeling is fit for planning and optimizing UFNs, because of the inclusion of the stepping-stone effects, human-induced pressures, and priorities. The framework can also be applied to other areas after a sensitivity test of the model and the modification of the parameters to fit the local environment.

Long-term impacts of land cover changes on stream channel loss

Land cover change and stream channel loss are two related global environmental changes that are expanding and intensifying. Here, we examine how different types and transitions of land cover change impact stream channel loss across a large urbanizing watershed. We present historical land cover in the 666-km(2) Lake Thunderbird watershed in central Oklahoma (USA) over a 137 year period and coinciding stream channel length changes for the most recent 70 years of this period. Combining these two datasets allowed us to assess the interaction of land cover changes with stream channel loss. Over this period, the upper third of the watershed shifted from predominantly native grassland to an agricultural landscape, followed by widespread urbanization. The lower two-thirds of the watershed changed from a forested landscape to a mosaic of agriculture, urban, forest, and open water. Most channel length lost in the watershed over time was replaced by agriculture. Urban development gradually increased channel loss and disconnection from 1942 to 2011, particularly in the headwaters. Intensities of channel loss for both agriculture and urban increased over time. The two longest connected segments of channel loss came from the creation of two large impoundments, resulting in 46 km and 25 km of lost stream channel, respectively. Overall, the results from this study demonstrate that multiple and various land-use changes over long time periods can lead to rapid losses of large channel lengths as well as gradual (but increasing) losses of small channel lengths across all stream sizes. When these stream channel losses are taken into account, the environmental impacts of anthropogenic land-use change are compounded.

Determining the bioclimatic comfort in Kastamonu City

Bioclimatic comfort defines the optimal climatic conditions in which people feel healthy and dynamic. Bioclimatic comfort mapping methods are useful to urban managers and planners. For the purposes of planning, climatic conditions, as determined by bioclimatic comfort assessments, are important. Bioclimatic components such as temperature, relative humidity, and wind speeds are important in evaluating bioclimatic comfort. In this study of the climate of Kastamonu province, the most suitable areas in terms of bioclimatic comfort have been identified. In this context, climate values belonging to the province of Kastamonu are taken from a total of nine meteorological stations. Altitude (36-1050 m) between stations is noted for revealing climatic changes. The data collected from these stations, including average temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed values are transferred to geographical information system (GIS) using ArcMap 10.2.2 software. GIS maps created from the imported data has designated the most suitable comfort areas in and around the city of Kastamonu. As a result, the study shows that Kastamonu has suitable ranges for bioclimatic comfort zone. The range of bioclimatic comfort value for Kastamonu is 17.6 °C. It is between a comfort ranges which is 15-20 °C. Kastamonu City has suitable area for bioclimatic comfort.

Measures of safeguard and rehabilitation for landscape protection planning: a qualitative approach based on diversity indicators

Maintaining existing levels of landscape diversity is becoming more and more important for planning considering the increasing pressures on agricultural ecosystems due to soil sealing, sprawl processes and intensive agriculture. Norms for land-use regulation and measures for landscape Safeguard and Rehabilitation have to take into consideration these threats in landscape planning. Evaluating the diversity of agricultural ecosystems is a fundamental step for proposing sound approaches to planning and managing both soil and landscape, as well as maintaining the related ecosystem services. The paper proposes a method aimed at the qualitative evaluation of spatial diversity of agricultural landscapes using a reduced set of ecological indicators based on land-use vector data. Indicators are calculated for defined landscape units characterized by landscape homogeneity. GIS geoprocessing and spatial analysis functions are employed. The study area is the Province of Enna in Sicily (Italy), which is characterized by cultivation mosaics in its southern region, cereal cultivation in the central region and prevailing natural environments in the northern region. Results from the indicator calculations are used to define measures to be included in a Landscape Protection Plan. Safeguard and Rehabilitation measures are introduced, which link indicator scores to planning protection aims. The results highlight the relevance of some agricultural mosaics in proximity to streams and seasonal fluvial environments, where some undamaged natural environments are still present. For these areas, specific landscape safeguard measures are proposed to preserve their diversity features together with their original agricultural functions. The work shows that even with a reduced number of indicators, a differentiated set of measures can be proposed for a Landscape Protection Plan.