Erratum to： A new ecological control method for Pisha sandstone based on hydrophilic polyurethane

In this Erratum, we correct the family name of the first author that was spelled as “LINAG” in Journal of Arid Land and the correction is “LIANG”.

The Theory and Methods Research on Ecological Quality Control of Enterprises

So far, most theories of economics and management are under the same premisethat the natural resources are never exhausted and regenerated repeatedly. The magic of technologybrought by industrial revolution endowed human with power that they can do anything they want. Italso turns natural resources into industrial energy and enhances the development of human societyand civilization. Human uses direct comparison of input and output and the satisfaction degree ofdemands to measure the production activities, the economic benefit and management performance,regardless of the change of ecology that serves as the natural resources. However, since theecological environment has been changing worse recently and natural disaster happened frequentlyhuman's dream of conquering the nature has been broken. The nature implements reprisal against humanagain and again, and human is faced with the development limit because of the environmentalrestriction.

Environmental availability and ecological risk assessment of heavy metals in zinc leaching residue

Four different methods,namely mineralogical analysis,three-stage BCR sequential extraction procedure,dynamic leaching test and Hakanson Potential Ecological Risk Index Method were used to access the environmental activity and potential ecological risks of heavy metals in zinc leaching residue.The results demonstrate that the environmental activity of heavy metals declines in the following order：CdZnCuAsPb.Potential ecological risk indices for single heavy metal are CdZnCuAsPb.Cd has serious potential ecological risk to the ecological environment and contributes most to the potential toxicity response indices for various heavy metals in the residue.

A Method for Alpine Wetland Delineation and Features of Border: Zoigê Plateau, China

Accurate wetland delineation is the basis of wetland definition and mapping, and is of great importance for wetland management and research. The Zoige Plateau on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau was used as a research site for research on alpine wetland delineation. Several studies have analyzed the spatiotemporal pattern and dynamics of these alpine wetlands, but none have addressed the issues of wetland boundaries. The objective of this work was to discriminate the upper boundaries of alpine wetlands by coupling ecological methods and satellite observations. The combination of Landsat 8 images and supervised classification was an effective method for rapid identification of alpine wetlands in the Zoig6 Plateau. Wet meadow was relatively stable compared with hydric soils and wetland hydrology and could be used as a primary indicator for discriminating the upper boundaries of alpine wetlands. A slope of less than 4.5° could be used as the threshold value for wetland delineation. The normalized difference vegetation index （NDVI） in 434 field sites showed that a threshold value of 0.3 could distinguish grasslands from emergent marsh and wet meadow in September. The median normalized difference water index （NDWI） of emergent marsh remained more stable than that of wet meadow and grasslands during the period from September until July of the following year. The index of mean density in wet meadow zones was higher than the emergent and upland zones. Over twice the number of species occurred in the wet meadow zone compared with the emergent zone, and close to the value of upland zone. Alpine wetlands in the three reserves in 2014 covered 1175.19 kin2 with a classification accuracy of 75.6%. The combination of ecological methods and remote sensing technology will play an important role in wetland delineation at medium and small scales. The correct differentiation between wet meadow and grasslands is the key to improving the accuracy of future wetland delineation.

Review on Quantitative Research Methods of Regional Sustainable Development in China

Since the 1990s, with the in-depth study and understanding of sustainable development, quantitative study of regional sustainable development (RSD) was increasingly hot in China. Based on quantitative study of RSD from Core Periodical in China National Knowledge Infrastructure (1992–2008), statistical analysis on the annual distribution, periodicals distribution and changes of the distribution were made. And from perspectives of social–economic, ecological, systematic and emerging methods, the course, problems and trends of the quantitative study methods on RSD were examined and analyzed to get a clear summary. By the review, the context on the quantitative study of RSD was to be clarified. The study also showed that, primarily, fields involving quantitative study are expanding; second, big progresses and constant development have been made on the systematic method gradually sophisticated, the flourishing ecological method and emerging new methods in the context of cross and integration which has made complex integrated systems a more satisfactory solution; third, the method system has been more multi-angled, and the clues of independent innovation have been observed despite the fact that the introduction of imported method is the main trend. Although many problems exist, multi-scale study, dynamic timeseries study and inter-regional comparative study will be further exploited and increasingly carried out with the progress of spatial information technology, which would boost the development and application of new methods in RSD study.

Did Ecological Engineering Projects Have a Significant Effect on Large-scale Vegetation Restoration in Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Region, China？ A Remote Sensing Approach

Aiming for the restoration of degraded ecosystems, many ecological engineering projects have been implemented around the world. This study investigates the ecological engineering project effectiveness on vegetation restoration in the Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Region(BTSSR) from 2000 to 2010 based on the rain use efficiency(RUE) trend in relation to the land cover. More than half of the BTSSR experienced a vegetation productivity increase from 2000 to 2010, with the increasing intensity being sensitive to the indicators chosen. A clear tendency towards smaller increasing areas was shown when using the net primary productivity(NPP, 51.30%) instead of the accumulated normalized difference vegetation index(59.30%). The short-term variation in the precipitation and intra-seasonal precipitation distribution had a great impact on the remote sensing-based vegetation productivity. However, the residual trends method(RESTREND) effectively eliminated this correlation, while incorporating the variance and skewness of the precipitation distribution increased the models′ ability to explain the vegetation productivity variation. The RUE combined with land cover dynamics was valid for the effectiveness assessment of the ecological engineering projects on vegetation restoration. Particularly, the result based on growing season accumulated normalized difference vegetation index(ΣNDVI) residuals was the most effective, showing that 47.39% of the BTSSR experienced vegetation restoration from 2000 to 2010. The effectiveness of the ecological engineering projects differed for each subarea and was proportional to the strength of ecological engineering. The water erosion region dominated by woodland showed the best restoration, followed by the wind-water erosion crisscross regions, while the wind erosion regions dominated by grassland showed the worst effect. Seriously degraded regions still cover more area in the BTSSR than restored regions. Therefore, more future effort should be put in restoring degraded land.

Ecological Water Requirement Estimates for Typical Areas in the Huaihe Basin

Aquatic ecosystems require ecological water allocation to prevent from being damaged by natural disasters and undue exploitation. This paper discusses and estimates the ecological water requirements （EWRs） of typical areas in the Huaihe Basin to determine rational allocations of water resources and pro- mote regional improvements of the ecological environment. The main river course, including Hongze Lake and Nansi Lake, was selected as the study subject. Calculational methods for the river and lake EWRs were based on the reasonableness of the results and data availability. The monthly guarantee rate method was used to calculate monthly, flood period, non-flood period, and annual EWRs for the main river course and the main tributaries at two different guarantee rates. The minimum water level method was used to calculate annual EWRs for Hongze Lake and the upper and lower Nansi Lake of 1.521×10^9 m^3, 0.637×10^9 m^3, and 0.306×10^9 m^3. The results were used to evaluate the rationality of the quantity of water resources allocated to ecological uses in the Huaihe Basin during 1998-2003. The result shows that the present water resource allocations in the Huaihe Basin cannot satisfy the basic ecological requirements for some years, especially years with less precipitation.

The Spatio-temporal Pattern of Regional Land Use Change and Eco-environmental Responses in Jiangsu, China

Land use change and its eco-environmental responses are foci in geographical research. As a region with uneven economic development, land use change and eco-environmental responses across Jiangsu Province are relevant to China＇s overall development pattern. The external function of regional land use changes during different stages of economic development. In this study, we proposed a novel classification system based on the dominant function of land use according to ＂production-ecology-life＂, and then analyzed land use change and regional eco-environmental responses from a functional perspective of regional development. The results showed that from 1985 to 2008, land use change features in Jiangsu were that productive land area decreased and eco- logical and living land areas increased. Land use changes in southern Jiangsu were the most dramatic. In southern and central parts of Jiangsu the agricultural production function weakened and urban life service function strengthened; in northern Jiangsu, the mining production function＇s comparative advantage highlighted that the rural life service function was weakening. Ecological environmental quality decreased slightly in Jiangsu and its three regions. The maximum contribution rate to ecological environmental change occurred in southern Jiangsu and the minimum rate was located in the north. Eco-environmental quality deteriorated in southern and central Jiangsu, related to expanding construction land in urban and rural areas. Ecological environmental quality deterioration in northern Jiangsu is probably due to land development and consolidation. The main reason for improvements in regional ecological environments is that agricultural production land was converted to water ecological land across Jiangsu.