Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research

Assessment of Cropland Abandonment and Vegetation Recovery on the Chinese Loess Plateau

Cropland abandonment alters agricultural land use and may enable improvements in vegetation cover. On the Chinese Loess Plateau, the extent and spatial variation of these changes remain critical questions for land management. This study used annual land-cover trajectories to iden...

Review article: Mountain flash floods: from hazard formation to disaster risk reduction pathways

Abstract. Flash floods in mountainous regions are becoming more frequent and destructive under climate warming, yet cross-regional understanding of their triggering mechanisms, cascading impacts, and governance remains fragmented. This review synthesises 1,967 studies published d...

Improved Skills for Predicting Sub‐Seasonal to Seasonal Global Sea Surface Temperature

ABSTRACT Accurate prediction of global sea surface temperature at sub‐seasonal to seasonal (S2S) timescales is critical for drought and flood forecasting, as well as for improving disaster preparedness in human society. Operational physics‐based numerical models are run to predic...

Net carbon emission accounts, drivers, and mitigation measures in China, 1980–2020

Mitigating net CO 2 emissions under socioeconomic development and climate variability is essential for climate action and sustainable development goals. Here, focusing on anthropogenic emissions and terrestrial ecosystem sinks, we construct a national-scale account of China's net...

Nonlinear response of soil moisture drought persistence to climatic aridity at the global scale

Soil moisture deficit persistence affects drought development, ecosystem resilience, and land–atmosphere feedbacks, but its dependence on climatic aridity is still not well understood at the global scale. We examine whether persistence changes gradually along the aridity gradient...

Short-Term Simulated NH4+/NO3− Inputs Reorganize Soil Microbial Communities and Modify N-Cycling Functional Potential in Temperate Forests

Forest soil nitrogen (N) turnover and nitrous oxide (N2O) release are strongly influenced by atmospheric N deposition. Although the effects of individual inorganic N species on soil biogeochemistry are well documented, the consequences of changing their relative supply for N2O fo...

Automated Construction of Geospatial Analysis Workflows: Recursive Solving of Elementary Modeling Questions Adaptive to Workflow Construction Contexts

ABSTRACT Geospatial analysis workflows are widely used to address complex geographic problems, but their construction is challenging due to dynamic contextual factors like the characteristics of the study area, geo‐models, and datasets during construction process. Current automat...

Response of alpine runoff to the ‘Warming and Wetting’ climate change trend: a Budyko-based attribution analysis in the Daheba Basin

ABSTRACT Understanding runoff responses in al pine basins is essential for water-resource management under climate change. This study assessed runoff changes and their drivers in the Daheba Basin, northeastern Tibetan Plateau, using hydrometeorological and land-surface data for 1...

An Efficient Parcel-Center Sampling Strategy for Parcel-Scale Crop Classification Using Multiresolution Remote Sensing

Parcel-scale crop classification is fundamental to agricultural remote sensing and precision agriculture. The integration of detailed parcel information with medium-spatial-resolution remote sensing data has become an important technical approach to parcel-scale crop classificati...

Exploring the Impact Path of Cultivated Land Use and Its Environmental Factors on Soil Nutrients in Southeastern Tibet

The rapid expansion of agricultural activities on the Tibetan Plateau has raised concerns about soil degradation and nutrient dynamics in this ecologically fragile alpine region. However, existing studies lack a systematic quantification of the vertical influence depth of farmlan...

Drought memory and vegetation shifts triggered by recurrent extreme drought events in alpine peatlands amplify the sensitivity of carbon sink function to drought

Climate change is expected to intensify the frequency and severity of extreme drought events, profoundly influencing terrestrial ecosystem carbon budgets. Peatlands are crucial carbon reservoirs in the global carbon cycle, storing nearly one-third of the world's soil carbon. Howe...

Forest and bioenergy expansion amplifies climate warming by accelerating regional cloud loss

Abstract. Land use and land cover change (LUCC) can exacerbate cloud-mediated climate warming. However, the long-term response of cloud cover to LUCC remains underexplored, particularly regarding differences between idealized and realistic forest expansion scenarios, as well as b...

Intensifying compound drought–heatwave events weaken ecosystem water-use efficiency in the Nile River Basin

Climate warming has intensified compound drought–heatwave (CDHW) events worldwide, posing growing threats to ecosystem carbon–water dynamics. However, the impacts of CDHWs on ecosystem water-use efficiency (WUE), particularly event sequencing, drought memory, and climatic heterog...

Impacts of needle-leaved forests landscape pattern and environmental factors on the spatial differentiation of pine wilt disease in China

Following its emergence in China, pine wilt disease (PWD) has continuously expanded, creating substantial risks to regional forest ecosystems. However, most existing research emphasizes climate and other macro-scale associated factors, and lacks long-term and systematic analysis...

Grassland soil bulk density decreases under grazing exclusion and responds asymmetrically to altered precipitation

Soil structure is a key determinant of grassland health and functioning, with bulk density serving as a widely used proxy. Grazing exclusion is a common restoration practice that often reduces soil bulk density in grasslands by restoring plant productivity and removing livestock...

Unraveling the Dynamics and Driving Forces of Desert and Riparian Vegetation in the Lower Reaches of a Typical Inland River Basin, Northwestern China

The lower reaches of inland river basins in northwestern China are highly vulnerable to water scarcity, ecological degradation, and climate change, yet vegetation responses and their environmental controls remain poorly understood. Using the terminal delta of the Heihe River basi...

Baseflow dominates river flow during droughts across the global streamflow network

Hydrological droughts occur when rainfall shortages reduce water storage in catchments, leading to delayed and prolonged low-flow conditions. How strongly baseflow supports river flow during droughts and whether this buffering remains stable under climate warming remain uncertain...

Aridity regulates scale-dependent effects of multiple resource additions on productivity stability in Eurasian grasslands

Increasing the supply of multiple limiting resources generally reduces biodiversity and community stability in grasslands. Aridity is known to modify biodiversity-stability relationships, yet it remains unclear whether the effects of multiple resource supply on biodiversity and s...

Improved estimation of lake storage variation via DEM reconstruction integrating elevation and morphological constraints

High-quality Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) are essential for accurately estimating lake storage variations, but the high cost of in-situ measurements limits their large-scale application. Reconstructing DEMs from remote sensing-derived lake contours is a promising low-cost alte...

Urban-rural household carbon emissions and their inequality in China: From the perspective of consumption structure

Reducing household carbon emissions (HCE) and their inequality is a global concern to promote fair environmental sustainability. However, the research on analyzing this issue across urban-rural households with different consumption structures is scarce, also not holistically capt...