Combatting land damage has become a global priority, and China has adopted a series of ecological engineering measures, especially in the agro-pastoral area with fragile ecological environment. The effectiveness of ecological engineering construction (EEC), from a comprehensive recognition encompassing its quality, quantity, and function, has remained largely unknown. To this end, Zhangbei County, a typical agro-pastoral ecotone of northern China, was chosen as our focal area. After summarizing the timelines, aims and results of the EEC during various periods in Zhangbei, the linear spectral mixture analysis was employed to process Landsat 5 TM images in 2000 and 2010, as well as Landsat 8 OLI images in 2020. Then, a comprehensive evaluation framework of EEC was established from the perspective of \"quantity-quality-function\", and the ecological effectiveness of EEC was evaluated from 2000 to 2020 in Zhangbei. Results revealed that EEC played a critical role in enhancing quantity, quality and function, in spite of that, there were still numerous regions showing varying degrees of degradation in terms of these aspects. Then, by extending the three-dimensional cube as the theoretical basis for the zoning management of EEC, we merged four zones according to the space matching relationship among quantity, quality and function of EEC, namely, Ecological conservation area, Ecological improvement area, Ecological restoration area and Ecological remodeling zone. More targeted ecological measures were required for specific matching relationship among quantity, quality and function of EEC. This study is expected to present an empirical case for assessing the ecological effectiveness of EEC in areas or countries with similar restoration demand and support regional management.

National parks provide a considerable number of co-benefits to society, including the balance of ecosystems, conservation of heritage values, and tourism. However, studies on zoning approaches for the management of national parks are lacking. The landscape characterization approach is a holistic method for identifying regional landscapes and helps improve zoning management, thus promoting sustainable planning. Here, we propose a landscape character classification (LCC) approach for national parks by integrating a k-means clustering algorithm and geographic information system (GIS). We used Laoshan National Park (LNP) as a case study and aimed to (1) quantify the major landscape factors (altitude, topography relief, soil type, and heritage impact intensity) that influence the landscape classification of mountainous protected areas; (2) create a map of landscape character types and areas to guide a zoning boundary; and (3) further examine how decision makers assign different conservation strategies to each landscape character area. Our results indicate that different landscape character areas reflect distinct ecological environments and heritage values and that differentiated zoning management can effectively mitigate the impact of natural disasters and human activities. Our study suggests that national parks require scientific landscape character zoning, rational descriptions of landscape character types, and targeted management measures to achieve the dual objectives of zoning and landscape conservation.

Global climate change has led to flood disasters increasing in terms of frequency and damage caused, which seriously threatens urban and rural security. The flood regulation (FR) service function of the ecosystem plays an important role in mitigating flood disaster risk. Previous studies on flood regulation ecosystem services (FRES) are still lacking in a cross-scale assessment of supply and demand, refined simulation of regional complex hydrology, and application of spatial zoning management. Taking the Fujian Delta as an example, this study established a cross-scale research framework based on the social-ecosystem principle. The SWAT model was used to simulate the regional hydrological runoff and calculate the macro-scale supply of FRES. Taking patches of land as units, a flood risk assessment model was constructed to calculate the micro-scale demand for FRES for urban and rural society. Through a comparison of supply and demand across spatial scales, a zoning management scheme to deal with flood disaster risk was proposed. The results showed that: (1) The supply of FRES differed greatly among the sub-basins, and the sub-basins with low supply were mostly distributed in the lower reaches of Jiulong River and the coastal areas. (2) The demand for FRES was concentrated in high-density urban built-up areas. (3) By comparing the supply and demand of FRES in sub-basin units, 2153 km2 ecological space was identified as the primary ecological protection area, and 914 km2 cultivated land and bare land were identified as the primary ecological restoration area. (4) By comparing the supply and demand of FRES of land patch units, 65.42 km2 of construction land was identified as the primary intervention area. This study provides a decision-making basis for regional flood disaster management from the perspective of FRES.