Ecosystem services (ESs) are essential for human society, and maintaining harmony between ecosystems and humanity to mitigate ES degradation is the fundamental basis for achieving a sustainable state. However, due to the influence of land use and land cover (LULC) and other ecological-economic factors, the quality and capacity of ESs supporting human welfare continue to decline, and the specific processes involved in this decline are still unclear.

Land use change analysis provides valuable information for landscape monitoring, managing, and prioritizing large area conservation practices. There has been significant interest in the southeastern United States (SEUS) due to substantial land change from various economic activities since the 1940s. This study uses quantitative data from the Economic Research Service (ERS) for landscape change analysis, addressing land change among five major land types for twelve states in the SEUS from 1945 to 2012.

An efficient, convenient, and accurate method for monitoring the distribution characteristics of soil salinity is required to effectively control the damage of saline soil to the land environment and maintain a virtuous cycle of the ecological environment. There are still problems with single-monitoring data that cannot meet the requirements of different regional scales and accuracy, including inconsistent band reflectance between multi-source sensor data.

Identifying the spatial changes in farming–pastoral ecotone (FPE) is of utmost importance for the development of strategies for ecological protection in ecologically fragile areas. This study employed spatial autocorrelation and spatial clustering techniques to map FPE at the pixel scale using CLCD data with a spatial resolution of 30 × 30 m in the years 1985, 2000, and 2021, and then analyzed the changes of the FPE in northern China.

Improving land ecological carrying capacity (LECC) is important in accelerating the realization of national ecological civilization construction goals. Based on the panel data of the first batch of prefecture-level cities in the National Pilot Zones for Ecological Conservation initiative from 2005 to 2019, this study analyzes the spatial–temporal pattern of LECC using the improved ecological footprint model, Theil–Sen’s slope estimator and Mann–Kendall test, and investigates the influencing factors of LECC using the geodetector.

Humans worldwide depend on ecosystems and the services they provide. Land use and land cover change increasingly, influencing ecosystem values to the extent that the rate and direction of change occurred. The objective of this study was to review the link between changes in Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) and Ecosystem Service Value (ESV), with emphasis on mountainous landscapes in Ethiopia. The reviewers used the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) guideline in the reviewing process.

‘Urbanization’ refers to the expansion of built-up areas caused by several factors. This study focuses on the urbanization process in Kathmandu, the capital of Nepal. Supervised classification was conducted in Google Earth Engine by using Landsat data for years 2001, 2011 and 2021. The random forest classifier with 250 trees was used for classification to generate land-cover map. A land-cover map of 2021 was used as base map in the InVEST tool for scenario modelling.

Land uses and terrain characteristics would likely influence the types and spatial arrangements of forest patches, and generally, forest fragmentation. Whereas prior research has focused mainly on direct land use-induced forest fragmentation, this study models the relationship between the spatial distribution of core forest patches, land uses, and terrain variables.

Assessing how land-use changes will affect water-producing ecosystem services is particularly important for water resource management and ecosystem conservation. In this study, the InVEST model and geographical detector were used to assess the water ecosystem service functions of the Ebinur Lake Basin and analyze their relationship with land-use changes. The results show that in the past 25 years, the water yield of the study area showed a trend of a strong yield at first and then a weaker one; there was a relatively large water yield in the west and southeast regions of the basin.

Dissolved organic matter (DOM) is ubiquitously present in aquatic environments, playing an important role in the global carbon cycle and water quality. It is necessary to reveal the potential sources and explore spatiotemporal variation of DOM in rivers, especially in urban zones impacted by human activities. It was designed to aim to explore spatiotemporal variations of DOM in urban rivers and ascertain the influencing factors.

Baseflow is an essential component of runoff, which is the dominant water resource for the dry season. To better manage water resources, it is vital to investigate the links between the multiple influencing factors and the baseflow for better prediction in light of global changes. Previous studies have seldom separated these influencing factors in the analysis, making it difficult to determine their effect on the baseflow.

The Qilian Mountains (QMs), located in the northeast part of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau in China, have a fragile ecological environment, complex and sensitive climate, and diverse land-cover types. It plays an important role in the “Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau Ecological Barrier” and “Northern Sand Control Belt” in China’s “two screens and three belts” ecological security strategy.