A national-scale assessment of land subsidence in China's major cities.

China's massive wave of urbanization may be threatened by land subsidence. Using a spaceborne synthetic aperture radar interferometry technique, we provided a systematic assessment of land subsidence in all of China's major cities from 2015 to 2022. Of the examined urban lands, 45% are subsiding faster than 3 millimeters per year, and 16% are subsiding faster than 10 millimeters per year, affecting 29 and 7% of the urban population, respectively. The subsidence appears to be associated with a range of factors such as groundwater withdrawal and the weight of buildings. By 2120, 22 to 26% of China's coastal lands will have a relative elevation lower than sea level, hosting 9 to 11% of the coastal population, because of the combined effect of city subsidence and sea-level rise. Our results underscore the necessity of enhancing protective measures to mitigate potential damages from subsidence.

Evaluating maize phenotype dynamics under drought stress using terrestrial lidar.

BACKGROUND: Maize (Zea mays L.) is the third most consumed grain in the world and improving maize yield is of great importance of the world food security, especially under global climate change and more frequent severe droughts. Due to the limitation of phenotyping methods, most current studies only focused on the responses of phenotypes on certain key growth stages. Although light detection and ranging (lidar) technology showed great potential in acquiring three-dimensional (3D) vegetation information, it has been rarely used in monitoring maize phenotype dynamics at an individual plant level. RESULTS: In this study, we used a terrestrial laser scanner to collect lidar data at six growth stages for 20 maize varieties under drought stress. Three drought-related phenotypes, i.e., plant height, plant area index (PAI) and projected leaf area (PLA), were calculated from the lidar point clouds at the individual plant level. The results showed that terrestrial lidar data can be used to estimate plant height, PAI and PLA at an accuracy of 96%, 70% and 92%, respectively. All three phenotypes showed a pattern of first increasing and then decreasing during the growth period. The high drought tolerance group tended to keep lower plant height and PAI without losing PLA during the tasseling stage. Moreover, the high drought tolerance group inclined to have lower plant area density in the upper canopy than the low drought tolerance group. CONCLUSION: The results demonstrate the feasibility of using terrestrial lidar to monitor 3D maize phenotypes under drought stress in the field and may provide new insights on identifying the key phenotypes and growth stages influenced by drought stress.