Towards more equitable cooling services of urban parks: Linking cooling effect, accessibility and attractiveness.

Global warming and rapid urbanization have caused frequent occurrences of heat waves and urban heat island effect, presenting a significant threat to health of urban residents. Researches have indicated that cooling services provided by parks are essential in alleviating impact of heat wave events and urban heat island effect. However, previous researches on park cooling services center around cooling effect, with a lack of exploration regarding the fairness of such services. To fill this gap, this study quantifies the level of equity in cooling services in 18 parks in the core area of Hangzhou. Through this study, we hope to clarify the current situation of fairness of cooling services in urban parks and provide fairer park cooling services through scientific and reasonable park layouts. This will alleviate the threat of rapid urbanization and climate change to urban residents, and make the urban environment develop in a more livable direction. We assessed the cooling effect using remote sensing and the ArcGIS platform to screen parks with cooling effect and to quantify their cooling service efficiency. We utilized spatial network analysis to quantify the accessibility and origin-destination matrix data to quantify the attractiveness to reflect the level of park cooling services. The results reveal that 18 parks exhibit a noticeable cooling effect, albeit with variations observed among parks. The percentage of urban parks with low accessibility is 77.80%, indicating that the distribution of accessible space presents an uneven status quo. In addition, 72.20% of parks have low attractiveness of cooling services, indicating that some parks have insufficient attractiveness of cooling services. Based on each indicator of cooling services, we categorize urban parks into four types based on supply and demand, and propose adaptive planning measures and intervention strategies to provide a reference for equitable distribution of cooling services in urban parks.

What Was George Forrest's Plant Collection Journey like in China?

Since the 16th century, Western countries have conducted extensive plant collections in Asia, particularly in China, driven by the need to collect botanical resources and foster academic development. These activities have not only significantly enriched the Western botanical specimen collections but have also had a profound impact on the development of related disciplines such as botany, ecology, and horticulture. During this process, a large number of renowned plant hunters emerged, whose discoveries and contributions are still remembered today. George Forrest (1873-1932) was one of these distinguished plant hunters. From 1904 to 1932, he visited China seven times to collect plants and became famous for the regional distinctiveness of the species he collected. However, due to the lack of systematic collection, organization, and analysis of specimens collected by Forrest, only a few species, such as the species Rhododendron, are well-known among the many species he introduced to the West. Furthermore, the personal collecting characteristics and the characteristic species collected by Forrest are also not clear. This limits a comprehensive understanding of the specimen collection history and impact of Forrest in China. Therefore, systematic organization and analysis of Forrest's plant specimens collected in China are crucial to understanding his impact on botanical classification, Rhododendrons introduction, global horticulture, and plant propagation. This study aims to systematically organize and analyze the plant specimens collected by George Forrest in China to investigate the family, genus, and species composition of the collected specimens and the seven collection expeditions of Forrest in China, as well as the time and altitude of these collections. Furthermore, it seeks to discuss Forrest's scientific contributions to the global spread of plants, the widespread application of the Rhododendron, and his impact on the development of modern gardens, providing a theoretical basis and data reference for related research and professional development. To this end, we extensively consulted important historical literature related to Forrest and systematically collected data from online specimen databases. The conclusions drawn from the available data include 38,603 specimens, with 26,079 collection numbers, belonging to 233 families, 1395 genera, and 5426 species, which account for 48.24%, 32.63%, and 14.17% of the plant families, genera, and species in China, respectively. Rhododendron specimens made up 17.20% of the specimens collected in this study. The collection locations cover three provinces or autonomous regions, 11 prefecture-level cities, and 25 counties. Furthermore, we found that Forrest's collections were concentrated in spring and summer, mainly in high-altitude areas, with 135 species found below 1500 m and 3754 species at 1500 m and above. Rhododendron specimens were mostly found above 3000 m.

Shall we promote natural history collection today?-Answered by reviewing Ernest Henry Wilson's plant collection process in China.

Plant diversity exploration needs to be accelerated because many species will go extinct before their discovery and description, and many species-rich regions remain poorly studied. However, most contemporary plant collections prefer to focus on a specific group, which hinders the exploration and conservation of plant diversity. Therefore, we need an alternative approach to the dilemma at hand. The comprehensive Natural History Collection (NHC), which existed throughout the pinnacle of biodiversity exploration in the 20th century could be considered. We explore Ernest Henry Wilson's (one of the most successful naturalists in the 20th) plant collections in China as a case to illustrate the advantages of NHC and discuss whether NHC deserves to be promoted again today. From multiple sources, we gathered 19,218 available specimen records of 11,884 collecting numbers assigned and analyzed the collected species, the collection's nature, and restored four routes of his explorations. Results reveal that Wilson's specimens were collected from 28 prefecture-level cities and 38 county-level regions of 7 provinces or municipalities, they belong to 200 families, 1046 genera, 3794 species, and 342 infraspecific taxa, approximately 41 %, 22 %, 10 %, 5 % of Chinese plant families, genera, species, and infraspecific taxa respectively. The Wilson case study shows that NHC is particularly effective in emphasizing species discovery and conservation, recording ecological information, understanding a region's flora, and developing landscape applications. Therefore, we strongly advocate for the expansion of natural history collections in species-rich regions. Furthermore, we recommend the employment of specialized collectors, the enlistment of international cooperation, and the standardization of guidelines for future NHCs.

Simulating future land use by coupling ecological security patterns and multiple scenarios.

A land use simulation model with coupling constraints of ecological security patterns (ESPs) and multiple scenarios (MSs) was developed using the PLUS model. The research scale was zoned with environmental functional regions, where land management policies were formulated. A case study in Anji County successfully demonstrated the application of the ESP-MS-PLUS model. First, we constructed three different levels of ESPs as ecological constraints by utilizing ecosystem services evaluation and circuit theory. Second, four scenarios of land use and land cover changes (LUCCs) in 2034 were assumed, namely business as usual (BAU), priority given to urban development (PUD), priority given to ecological protection (PEP), and balanced urban development and ecological protection (BUE). Then, the basic ecological constraints (ecological red line areas and waters) and three types of ESPs were coupled with the four scenarios. The results of the simulation and analysis of landscape metrics under each scenario showed that the PEP and BUE scenarios would effectively reduce the degree and speed of ecological destruction. In addition, there were three environmental functional areas that could be used as priority areas for urban construction to ensure economic development. This study provides a new mechanism for land use optimization in the context of ecological protection at scales conducive to practice.