Yue Cao

Tsinghua University | TH · Institute for National Parks & Department of Landscape Architecture，School of Architecture

Biodiversity loss is a social and ecological emergency, and calls have been made for the global expansion of protected areas (PAs) to tackle this crisis. It is unclear, however, where best to locate new PAs to protect biodiversity cost-effectively. To answer this question, we conducted a spatial meta-analysis by overlaying seven global biodiversity...

Preserving wilderness areas is one of the key goals in the post-2020 global biodiversity framework. 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 threats and conservati...

Wilderness loss is one of the main threats to biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. The post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework of the Convention on Biological Diversity proposes "retaining wilderness areas" in the first target of the 21 action-oriented targets for 2030. We conducted a global analysis of projected loss of wildernes...

Urban greenways are pivotal in enriching urban quality and fostering socio-ecological sustainability. Previous studies on urban greenway networks have often overlooked user-based experience efficiency, leading to the underutilization and insufficient translation of cultural services into human well-being. In this study, we introduce a user behavior...

Greenspaces on university campuses have gained recognition for their multifaceted impact on the physical, social, emotional and intellectual well-being of students. The allocation of resources towards the development and maintenance of greenspaces is regarded as a strategy in the pursuit of sustainable development goals. However, the research on gr...

Amidst the growing concerns about mental health issues among urban dwellers, there has been increased attention to the restorative potential (RP) of urban landscapes. However, research into the relevant landscape features tends to lack the integration of quantifiable methodologies, which are essential for practical imple- mentation in urban plannin...

How climate change and human activities drive the evolution of the regional environment and where the quality of ecosystems improve or decline over time have become widespread concerns. In this study, we took the Three-River-Source (TRS) region of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau as a case, aiming to identify and quantify the contribution of the natural a...

Terrestrial protected areas (TPAs) are vital for ecosystem conservation and can easily be threatened by human activities or natural disasters. The causes and impacts of human intervention on TPAs have been documented in previous studies, while assessing the exposure and vulnerability of TPAs to natural hazards, particularly wind hazards, is scarce....

An ambitious new Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework "Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework" has been developed. However, the combined effects of climate change and human modification can undermine the potential benefits of the global post-2020 conservation efforts. The co-benefits of stabilizing the climate, conserving biodiversity, a...

As the most biodiversity-rich part of the protected areas system, habitats within the pilot national parks have long been threatened by drastic human-induced land use and land cover changes. The growing concern about habitat loss has spurred China's national park project to shift from pilot to construction phase with the official establishment of C...

Global biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, and the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework requires each country to fulfill the conservation targets in biodiversity-inclusive spatial planning. Croplands provide habitat and food for many species, making them crucial for biodiversity conservation in addition to food production. Assess...

Making the university and its teachers and students alike as sustainable entrepreneurs are central endeavours in this age of sustainable development today. This paper presents an in-depth case study to examine the development of sustainable entrepreneurship of Tsinghua University of China at institutional and curricular levels. The paper first prop...

Maintaining and improving the connectivity of protected areas (PAs) is essential for biodiversity conservation. The Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF) aims to expand the coverage of well-connected PAs and other effective area-based conservation measures to 30% by 2030. We proposed a framework to evaluate the connectivity of PAs and devel...

Sustainable oil palm production is a key issue in global biodiversity conservation and sustainable development. As one of the world’s major vegetable oil crops, oil palm has expanded exponentially to meet increased demand over the past decades. However, previous monitoring and assessments of oil palm plantations were hampered because of the lack of...

Balancing biodiversity conservation and food security is the key to global sustainable development. However, we know little about the future global conflict risk hotspots between biodiversity and food security at both country and Biodiversity Hotspots (BHs) levels. First we calculated land use intensity index (LUII) based on future land use simulat...

Agricultural expansion, driven by the increasing demand on crops, poses a severe threat to the global environment and to human welfare. Regarded as an effective landscape pattern for balancing biodiversity and food security, land sparing bears high expectations from ecologists. To reflect the spatial-temporal pattern change of land sparing, we calc...

Biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, and conservation is needed in many places including human-dominated landscapes. Evaluation of conflict risk between biodiversity conservation and human activities is a prerequisite for countries to develop strategies to achieve better conservation outcomes. However, quantitative methods to measure...

大学校园拥有丰富的生物多样性,其不仅拥有保护生物多样性、应对气候变化等重要功能,更是通过教育提升师生乃至公众生物多样性保护意识的重要场所,开展大学校园生物多样性保护实践具有重要意义。本文研究梳理了全球大学校园生物多样性保护进展,分析了4个典型案例(剑桥大学、罗得岛大学、英属哥伦比亚大学、北京大学),并从加强调查研究、编制保护规划、开展多元的保护实践三个方面为中国大学校园生物多样性保护提出建议。

The ecological vulnerability of global protected areas (PAs) is linked to the 2030 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. We developed a novel degree of ecological vulnerability (DEV) index based on Big Earth Data to assess the ecological vulnerability of PAs. This is a transparent, repeatable, large-scale and rapid assessment method. We app...

Biodiversity conservation is the cornerstone for sustainable development. Bold conservation targets provide the last opportunities to halt the human-driven mass extinction. Recently, bold conservation targets have been proposed to protect 30% or 50% of Earth. However, little is known about its potential impacts on cropland. We identify potential cr...

There has been much recent interest in the concept of rewilding as a tool for nature conservation, but also confusion over the idea, which has limited its utility. We developed a unifying definition and 10 guiding principles for rewilding through a survey of 59 rewilding experts, a summary of key organizations’ rewilding visions, and workshops invo...