Zhiyun Ouyang

• PhD
• Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences

The global cryosphere is retreating under ongoing climate change. The Third Pole (TP) of the Earth, which serves as a critical water source for two billion people, is also experiencing this decline. However, the interplay between rising temperatures and increasing precipitation in the TP results in complex cryospheric responses, introducing uncerta...

The ongoing biodiversity crisis has raised concerns about the effectiveness of area‐based conservation (ABC) strategies for achieving positive biodiversity outcomes. In riverine ecosystems, the linear habitat structure of fishes introduces uncertainty into the synergistic conservation potential of ABC. Therefore, to assess the synergistic conservat...

Gross ecosystem product (GEP) is the aggregate economic value of the final goods and services of the ecosystem produced within a given area, providing a potentially effective means of linking nature protection and restoration to development. In this study, we calculated the values and distribution of biodiversity, GEP and gross domestic product (GD...

Climate change leads to permafrost thawing, accelerating carbon emissions increases, challenges the goal of climate change mitigation. However, it remains unknown whether implementing ecological restoration projects in Alpine areas can offset the adverse effects of permafrost thawing locally. Here we took the Qinghai‒Tibet Plateau as an example to...

Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from livestock manure contribute significantly to the growth of atmospheric N 2 O, a powerful greenhouse gas and dominant ozone‐depleting substance. Here, we estimate global N 2 O emissions from livestock manure during 1890–2020 using the tier 2 approach of the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines. Global N 2...

Nitrous oxide (N 2 O) emissions from livestock manure contribute significantly to the growth of atmospheric N 2 O, a powerful greenhouse gas and dominant ozone-depleting substance. Here, we estimate global N 2 O emissions from livestock manure during 1890-2020 using the tier 2 approach of the 2019 Refinement to the 2006 IPCC Guidelines. Global N 2...

Grasslands are important terrestrial ecosystems and key sources of primary productivity for livestock on Earth. It is very important to clarify the trend of the balance between grassland and livestock for sustainable development. Focusing on the unique alpine grassland ecosystem that is widely distributed in the Tibetan Plateau (TP), we assessed th...

Ground-level ozone (O3) pollution has been a severe environmental and health problem for decades. The importance of biogenic volatile organic compounds (BVOCs) in the formation of tropospheric photochemistry O3 has been highlighted, especially in areas of rapid urbanization. We conducted simultaneous measurements of trace gases, including NO, NOX,...

Ecological products and ecosystem services are essential for human survival and development. Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) is a method to combine the value of ecosystem services and can reflect the status of ecosystem and ecological conservation and restoration performance. The conservation and restoration of desert ecosystems play an important rol...

Nitrate contamination in surface water has become an environmental problem widespread concern. In this study, environmental isotopes (δ 15 N-NO 3 − and δ 18 O-NO 3 −) and the chemical compositions of water samples from an urban river in Chongqing, China, were analyzed to evaluate the primary sources of nitrate pollution. A Bayesian isotope mixing m...

This study investigates the quality of stormwater runoff from a driveway in the southwest mountainous urban area of Chongqing, China, from 2010 to 2011. The results showed that the mean concentrations of chemical oxygen demand (COD), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) were 4.1, 2.4, and 2.2 times the grade V levels of the national surfa...

There is an urgent requirement to examine the quality of harvested rainwater for potable and non-potable purposes, based on the type of roofing material. In this study, we examined the effect on the quality of harvested rainwater of conventional roofing materials (concrete, asphalt and ceramic tile roofs) compared with alternative roofing materials...

With further urbanization, household consumption firmly plays a key role in China’s national carbon emissions. However, current research concerning carbon issues has mainly focused on urban household consumption, and few studies have paid attention to herder households, leading to a research gap in the field of low-carbon shifting related to nomadi...

The large-scale loss of ecosystem assets around the world, and the resultant reduction in the provision of nature’s benefits to people, underscores the urgent need for better metrics of ecological performance as well as their integration into decision-making. Gross ecosystem product (GEP) is a measure of the aggregate monetary value of final ecosys...

Globally, rising food demand has caused widespread biodiversity and ecosystem services loss, prompting growing efforts in ecological protection and restoration. However, these efforts have been significantly undercut by further reclamation for cropland. Focusing on China, the world’s largest grain producer, we found that at the national level from...

Soil erosion exerts a profound impact on the stocks of soil organic carbon (SOC), disrupting the carbon cycle and contributing to global warming. Through its role in mitigating soil erosion, the soil retention service of ecosystems holds the potential to stabilize and safeguard the SOC reservoir. This facet has yet to be comprehensively investigate...

Ecological restoration projects (ERPs) are an indispensable component of natural climate solutions and have proven to be very important for reversing environmental degradation in vulnerable regions and enhancing ecosystem services. However, the level of enhancement would be inevitably influenced by global drought and rising CO 2 , which remain less...

In the context of increasing urbanization and worsening environmental pollution, nonpoint source pollution during high-frequency rainfall has become a major ecological problem that endangers residents in cities. This study takes Shenzhen as an example. On the basis of a large number of soil sample test data, and combined with relevant environmental...

Air pollutant removal by urban vegetation is perceived to be a key ecosystem service for mitigating air pollution. However, the effectiveness of air phytoremediation in cities requires more synthesis to inform environmental management. A Bayesian meta-analysis approach was used to quantify the effectiveness of the removal of typical air pollutants—...

Ecological representativeness of protected area networks is essential for leveraging protected areas to achieve conservation goals. On the basis of China’s vegetation map and the spatial data of protected areas, we analyze the representativeness of China’s network of protected areas in protecting distinct types of terrestrial natural ecosystems. Ac...

Ecosystem service flow refers to the whole process of ecosystem service production, delivery and utilization, which is closely related to social-ecological processes. However, quantifying the entire ecosystem service flow process remains challenging, placing limits on the management of social-ecological systems to improve human wellbeing. Here, we...

Given the increasing attention to climate change and rising CO2 (CCRC) in the global carbon cycle, we remain unclear about how China's unprecedented land use/cover change (LUCC) in the carbon budget has been affected by CCRC in recent decades. Here, we combined remotely sensed land use/cover (LUC) datasets and the Biome-BGCMuSo model to address thi...

Ecosystem-based cooling helps residents cope with the urban heat-island problem. In order to improve the accuracy of traditional heat-island measurements based on comparisons between urban and rural areas, we use an "on-site" method developed with only urban data. The essence of this method is a regression analysis of the relationships among differ...

Landscape structures affect pests, depending on compositional heterogeneity (the number and proportions of different habitats), configurational heterogeneity (spatial arrangement of habitats), and spatial scales. However, there is limited information on the relative effects of compositional and configurational heterogeneity on invasive pests and th...

Previous studies have shown that climatic and anthropogenic factors influence the variations in the stable isotope signature of tree materials in an urban ecosystem. However, the responses of urban trees to various anthropogenic and precipitation interventions are unclear. To fill the research gap, the isotopic composition (δ15N and δ18O) and total...

Studying the whole process of ecosystem services (ES) realization by people (ecosystem services flow) is the key to ES management. However, varying concepts of relative ecosystem services flow (ESF) and different methods for measuring ESF have prevented its effective application in policy and management. In addition, there has been no systematic re...

Ecosystem services (ES) emerge from the complex interactions of diverse ecosystem components. In turn, the provision of ES is influenced by how they are put to use and environmental drivers such as climate change and land use change (CC-LUC). Researches into CC-LUC impacts on ES have so far focused on biophysical supply rather than ES interactions,...

The continuous decline of global biodiversity highlights the need for the expansion and improved performance of protected areas (PAs) to achieve the Post-2020 Biodiversity Targets and 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. China proposed the establishment of a national park (NP) system and carried out transformative explorations in 10 pilot NPs, howev...

Trees growing on paved lands endure many environmental stresses in the urban environment. However, the morphological and physiological mechanisms underlying tree adaptation to pavement in the field are less known. In this study, we investigated 40 sites where Ginkgo biloba and Platanus orientalis grow on adjacent pairs of paved and vegetated plots...

Land urbanization has reduced the amount of area for natural ecosystem assets. However, with the development of the social economy, will the quality of natural ecosystem assets be improved? If one comprehensively considers the changes in the area and quality of natural ecosystem assets, is the dominant impact of urbanization on natural ecosystem as...

Air pollutant removal by urban vegetation is a type of nature-based solution (NbS), and has received growing attention by researchers and decision-makers across the world. However, the effectiveness of botanical pollutant removal in cities requires more synthesis to inform urban planning and management. In this study, we quantified the effectivenes...

Intercropping in plantations may alter soil water consumption, absorption and retention. However, little is known about how soil water changes impact ecosystem services. In the present study, we planted Alpinia oxyphylla Miq. (a medicinal herb) in rubber (Hevea brasiliensis) plantations and monitored daily soil water content in the surface (0–20 cm...

Cities in China support higher human population densities compared to those in western countries; consequently, the high pressure placed on cultural ecosystem services (CES) provision of residential green spaces might hinder overall human wellbeing and the maintenance of avian diversity. Thus, this study aimed to identify how to meet the main prefe...

Sewage treatment provides a pathway for anthropogenic water purification that can address the growth in domestic sewage volumes due to urbanization and protect the aquatic environment. However, the process can also generate greenhouse gases (GHGs), which are sometimes termed “unrestricted” GHG emissions and are neglected by low carbon policies. A c...

Ecological restoration policies and their implementation are influenced by ecological and socioeconomic drivers. Top-down approach-based spatial planning, emphasizing hierarchical control within government structures, and without a comprehensive consideration of social-ecological interactions may result in implementation failure and low efficiency....

This study analyzes cities in China at the prefecture level and above to calculate indices for "urban economic efficiency" (the relationship between input factors and output) and "urbanization economic efficiency" (the relationship between newly increased output and increased economic input), based on the Stochastic Frontier Analysis (SFA) method....

Although biodiversity has been shown to profoundly affect ecosystem function in forests, the processes which it impacts are limited understood. Various plant species with diverse sizes interact to form complex networks to complete resource use processes, but little is known about the role of species-size networks in influencing ecosystem function a...

Biodiversity plays a key role in supporting ecosystem services. Understanding this relationship sheds light on the linkages between ecological structure and functioning, thereby increasing the capacity for effective strategies of ecosystem conservation and restoration. Focusing on southwestern China, a global biodiversity hotspot, we evaluated the...

Terrestrial ecosystems play a critical role in the global carbon cycle and climate change mitigation. Studying the temporal and spatial dynamics of carbon sink and the driving mechanisms at the regional scale provides an important basis for ecological restoration and ecosystem management. Taking the Dongting Lake Basin as an example, we assessed th...

Urban–rural gradients of soil nutrients may be affected by many factors including land use, vegetation cover, and management. In this study, focusing on one vegetation type (Chinese pine, Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) to exclude the effects of vegetation cover, we investigated soil nutrients in three land-use types (neighborhoods, parks and roadsides)...

Aboveground carbon storage in forests can be influenced by both structural and compositional diversity of plant communities. However, the relative and interactive effects of structural and compositional diversity on multilevel aboveground carbon storage across forest strata and how these relationships vary with altitude and soil nutrients remain un...

Background: Being an excellent indicator of habitat quality, birds are more and more popular in urban studies. Selective impacts of urban environments on avian communities have been repeatedly demonstrated, however, limited information is available under a spatial-temporal perspective, especially for subtropical young cities. Methods: Bird communit...

Overgrowth of reactive nitrogen (Nr, all species of nitrogen except N2 gas) emissions is a major cause of environmental pollution especially in rapidly urbanizing regions. The Nitrogen Footprint (NF) indicator has been widely used to assess Nr losses occurring from consumption of food and energy. We undertake the first attempt to apply NF methods t...

Improving the efficiency with which natural resources are utilized is an indispensable for achieving sustainable development and carbon neutrality. By analyzing the utilization efficiency of energy, water, and land, we established a comprehensive natural resource utilization efficiency index (NRUEI). We then calculated the 2016 index for 165 cities...

Air quality issues caused by nitrogen dioxide (NO2) have become increasingly serious in Chinese cities in recent years. As important urban green infrastructure, urban forests can mitigate gaseous nitrogen pollution by absorbing NO2 through leaf gas exchange. This study investigated spatiotemporal variations in the NO2 removal capacity of urban fore...

The impact of climate change, rising CO2, land use/land cover change (LC) and land management (LM) on carbon cycle in terrestrial ecosystems has been widely reported. However, rare studies have been conducted to clarify the impact of climate change and rising CO2 on carbon sink contributed by ecological restoration projects (ERPs). To better unders...

An increasing number of studies have focused on the response and adaptation of plants to urbanization by comparing differences in leaf functional traits between urban and rural sites. However, considerable uncertainties remain because differences in land-use type have not frequently been taken into account when assessing the effect of urbanization...

The karst landform is a typical ecologically vulnerable region, and the problem of karst rocky desertification in southtern and western China has led to impoverishment and a degraded local ecological environment, which severely limits local socioeconomic development. An effective and appropriate control of karst rocky desertification in southtern a...

Beginning in the 21st century, the world entered a stage of the rapid development of land urbanization. In general, land urbanization sacrifices ecosystem service value for economic value. Optimizing the spatial pattern of land urbanization is the best means of balancing economic development and ecosystem service value. Taking China as an example,...

In addition to habitat loss and fragmentation, demographic processes—the vagaries of births, deaths and sex ratio fluctuations—pose substantial threats to wild giant panda populations. Additionally, climate change and plans for the Giant Panda National Park may influence (in opposing directions) the extinction risk for wild giant pandas. The Fourth...

This study aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of the role of urban waterbodies in avian ecology, which is instructive for both biodiversity conservation and urban planning. Based on bird surveys conducted in 41 urban parks in Beijing during the breeding and wintering seasons of 2018–2019, and using standardized regression analyses, we id...

An increasing number of studies have found differences in the diversity of plant functional traits between urban and rural sites as a result of urbanization. However, the results remain inconsistent. In this study, we measured morphological and nutrient traits of 11 common woody plants along a continuous urban–rural gradient in Beijing, China. Leaf...

PurposeHigh-diversity communities may mitigate the impact of environmental changes on soil erosion owing to the compositional, structural, and functional diversity of their species. In this field study, we explored the relative contributions of these biodiversity components to soil erosion and the mitigating effects of each index under environmenta...

It is widely recognized that green infrastructures in urban ecosystems provides important ecosystem services, including air purification. The potential absorption of nitrogen oxides (NOx) by urban trees has not been fully quantified, although it is important for air pollution mitigation and the well-being of urban residents. In this study, four com...

Purpose Litter decomposition is a key process of nutrient cycling in terrestrial ecosystems, an important part of the global carbon budget, and deeply affected by global atmospheric nitrogen deposition. However, the effects of different forms of N addition on litter decomposition and nutrient release are unclear in a cold temperate coniferous fores...

Environmental degradation caused by rapid urbanization is a pressing global issue. However, little is known about how urban changes operate and affect environments across multiple scales. Focusing on China, we found urbanization was indeed massive from 2000 to 2015, but it was also very uneven, exhibiting high internal city dynamics. Urban areas in...

The authors would like to make the following correction about the published paper [...]

Dynamic monitoring of forest ecosystem quality is necessary for restoration program evaluation but remains challenging for very large-scale programs. Current evaluation methods employ regional forest quality indicators that compare the quality status of targeted forests with benchmarks from remnant old-growth forest communities, however data availa...

The spatial heterogeneity of plant diversity at the neighborhood scale has less been understood, although it is very important for the planning and management of neighborhood landscape. In this case study of Beijing, we conducted intensive investigations of the plant diversity in different neighborhoods along a rural–urban gradient. The results sho...

Roads have diverse influences on surrounding biodiversity, especially birds. Here, we evaluated the ecological influences of a highway on avian diversity in the Erka Wetland Reserve (Inner Mongolia, China) to guide future road construction projects. Here, avian and plant surveys were conducted along 51 strips spread over nine transects with differe...

In response to extreme societal consequences of ecosystem degradation and climate change, attention to ecological restoration is increasing globally. In China, investments in restoration exceeded USD 378.5 billion over the past decade. However, restoration programs are experiments that can cause marked unintended consequences, with trade-offs acros...

The ecological civilization construction in China currently demands high-quality development, and a standards system can guide and support the high-quality development of ecological civilization. In this study, we review the strategic demand for the high-quality development of ecological civilization, present the theoretical and practical progress...

Shortfalls and mismatches between the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ES) can be detrimental to human wellbeing. Studies focused on these problems have increased in recent decades, but few have applied land use optimization to reduce such spatial mismatches. This study developed a methodology to identify ES mismatches and then use these mi...

Climate change and human activities exert a wide range of stressors on urban coastal areas. Synthetical assessment of coastal vulnerability is crucial for effective interventions and long-term planning. However, there have been few studies based on integrative analyses of ecological and physical characteristics and socioeconomic conditions in urban...

Urban-rural gradients of soil nutrients may be affected by many factors including land use, vegetation cover, and management. In this study, we investigated soil nutrients along urban-rural gradients beneath Chinese pine ( Pinus tabulaeformis Carr.) in parks, neighborhoods and roadsides in Beijing, China. Soil levels of organic carbon, calcium, and...

Land-use intensification has led to biodiversity loss, which affects ecosystem properties and services by altering plant functional traits. However, the mechanistic pathways through which land-use intensity (LUI) affects ecosystem services across functional traits and ecosystem properties remain unclear. We studied the relationships among LUI, plan...

Global climate change and extensive socio-economic development both act to decrease the ground cover in the semi-arid sandy grasslands of Horqin district, northern China. Loss of ground cover increases the direct exposure of the surface soil to erosion by strong winds—a process that ultimately converts grassland into sandy desert. Three ways to res...

Introduction: Effective provision of ecosystem services (ES) and improvements in well-being of residents can be realized through policy interventions of stakeholder behavior. Of the several policies, market-based instruments (MBIs) have become the focus of global attention. Outcomes/others: To couple the theory with practice and solve the key probl...

Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) is an aggregate measure of the monetary value of final ecosystem services, or the direct benefits that people derive from nature. In this study, we focus on the 'Chang-Zhu-Tan' (CZT) urban agglomeration - an emerging megacity of over 15 million people situated on the Yangtze River - as a case study of the dynamics of e...

Understanding interactions between resident and non-resident birds in urban areas is important for managing urban greenspace to protect urban bird diversity. Here, we determined how interactions between resident and non-resident species potentially affect bird diversity in the urban green species of Macau (subtropical area of China). We examined se...

With rapid urbanization in China, anthropogenic reactive nitrogen (Nr) releases to urban environment contribute to water resource depletion and serious water quality deterioration. This study assessed nitrogen-related water pollution in an urbanized city (Shenzhen, China) by using the indicators of gray water footprint (GWF) and water pollution lev...

The population aggregation and built-up area expansion caused by urbanization can have significant impacts on the supply and distribution of crucial ecosystem services. The correlation between urbanization and ecosystem services has been well-studied, but additional research is needed to better understand the spatiotemporal interactions between eco...

The restoration of ecosystems provides an important opportunity to improve the provision of ecosystem services. Achieving the maximum possible benefits from restoration with a limited budget requires knowing which places if restored would produce the best combination of improved ecosystem services. Using an ecosystem services assessment and optimiz...

The Convention on Biological Diversity’s Aichi Targets address both biodiversity and ecosystem services. We explore the relationship between giant panda populations and three ecosystem services: carbon sequestration, water retention, and soil retention. Do pandas prefer areas with higher than average values of these services? Areas may be good for...

Residential communities are the primary living spaces for people in China. Their associated greenspaces are important elements of the urban ecosystem, providing neighborhood ecosystem services and hosting bird populations of differing community structures compared with other urban green areas. This study analyzes avian community characteristics wit...

Synergies and tradeoffs among the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) within specific locations have been widely studied. However, there is little understanding of SDG synergies and tradeoffs across spatial/administrative boundaries although the world is increasingly interconnected and the United Nations aims to achieve SDGs everywh...

Ecosystem degradation can lead to adverse consequences and disasters and hence, a healthy ecosystem is imperative for human well‐being. As a country with a large population and area, China's ecological security has global significance. To determine the effect of existing land use and relevant policies on the ecosystem, we need to understand the cur...

Urbanization is characterized by population agglomeration and the expansion of impervious land surfaces. As a result of ongoing urbanization, rain and flood events have increasingly affected the well-being of residents in cities across the world. This should draw attention to the role of urban ecosystems in providing runoff retention/flood mitigati...