Seven approaches to research in socio-ecological practice & five insights from the RWC-Schön-Stokes model.

In this review article, I examine seven commonly used approaches to research in socio-ecological practice and share insights about their defining characteristics, similarities, differences and connections. I derived these approaches and gained insights through the RWC-Schön-Stokes model, a theoretical framework for codifying, tabulating, examining and comparing multiple ways of methodical knowing in socio-ecological systems. For this reason, I begin with an introduction of the model and, in a chronological order, provide a review of its association with three intellectual ancestors: the Bush linear model (1945), the Stokes quadrant model (1997) and the Schön-Stokes model (2017).

"The trouble", its maker, and Yang Gui's confidence in "taming the troublemaker" with a 1962 bilateral agreement.

On August 15, 1962, an agreement was signed by the representatives of the Red Flag Canal users from two counties in China. Since then, it has enabled people from both counties to share canal benefits, and as such ably become a cornerstone for a peaceful canal culture between the two peoples. The agreement and its making process were both initiated by Yang Gui (), the top leader of one of the two counties who masterminded the Red Flag Canal project. In explaining his motivation, Yang Gui stated, "We are building the Red Flag Canal for posterity; we must do everything we can to save posterity the trouble." However, just what "the trouble" he perceived was, who the troublemaker he thought would be, and why he was confident that a bilateral agreement could serve the noble goal "to save posterity the trouble", Yang Gui did not say, neither did he leave any record. In this article, we report our aspiration and endeavor to fill this knowledge gap, and present fresh discoveries and insights we derived from examining this instance through a CPR lens-an eclectic collection of economic constructs of common-pool resources (CPRs). The article is the fourth in a mini-series on the Red Flag Canal, one of the best kept secrets in the history of socio-ecological practice.

In fighting common threats, people's deep commitment to taking collective action matters: examples from China's COVID-19 battle and her other combats.

In fighting against common threats to human survival and well-being, be they from natural disaster or human conflict, people's commitment to taking collective action matters and can make a huge or even decisive difference. Throughout human history, there is a myriad of powerful examples from around the world in which people's deep commitment to taking collective action changed the course of combat against common threats. These examples are invaluable heritages that belong to the entire humanity. At this critical juncture in human history, they can help cultivate a greater sense of optimism among all the people in the world both in the present fight against the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. To this end, in this showcase article, we present examples of this kind from China's ongoing COVID-19 battle, and from two of her many historical combats.

Why was Tao Lujia so willing and swift to greenlight the Red Flag Canal Project in 1960? New insights via a lens of compassion practice.

In an extraordinarily willing and swift fashion, the top leader of Shanxi Province in China, Tao Lujia [, (1917-2011)], gave permission to the Red Flag Canal Project in 1960. Why was he so willing and swift to greenlight a project that would divert water from his home province to benefit the people in a neighbor province? We explored this question through a bipartite investigation. First, we dug into the empirical literature, the literature based on experience and/or observation, in search of his motivations for the action. Second, for a more systematic, deeper understanding, we examined the instance via a lens of compassion practice, an eclectic collection of theoretical constructs on compassion practice through which one can examine an individual's behavior and performance for new insights. This article reports the second part of our research. It is a sequel to Why was Tao Lujia so willing and swift to greenlight the Red Flag Canal Project in 1960? The instance and his motivations which reports the first part of our research and is also published in this journal. Both articles are part of the SEPR mini-series on the Red Flag Canal, one of the best kept secrets in the world history of socio-ecological practice.

The Red Flag Canal: a socio-ecological practice miracle from serendipity, through impossibility, to reality.

This showcase article presents a 50-year-old, 1500-km-long irrigation canal in China as an exemplary case of socio-ecological practice. With a focus on its genesis, the article is the first of a mini-series on one of the best kept secrets in the history of socio-ecological practice.

Why was Tao Lujia so willing and swift to greenlight the Red Flag Canal Project in 1960? The instance and his motivations.

In an extraordinarily willing and swift fashion, the top leader of Shanxi Province in China, Tao Lujia [, (1917-2011)], gave permission to the Red Flag Canal project in 1960. Why was he so willing and swift to greenlight a project that would divert water from his home province to benefit the people in a neighbor province? We explored this question through a bipartite investigation. First, we dug into the empirical literature, the literature based on experience and/or observation, in search of his motivations for the action. Second, for a more systematic, deeper understanding, we examined the instance via a lens of compassion practice, an eclectic collection of theoretical constructs on compassion practice through which one can examine an individual's behavior and performance for new insights. This article reports the first part of our research. Its sequel Why was Tao Lujia so willing and swift to greenlight the Red Flag Canal Project in 1960? New insights via a lens of compassion practice reports the second part and is also published in this journal. Both articles are part of the SEPR mini-series on the Red Flag Canal, one of the best kept secrets in the world history of socio-ecological practice.

Conserving biodiversity takes a plan: How planners implement ecological information for biodiversity conservation.

Conserving biodiversity is critical to the sustainability of human settlements, and stands to benefit from collaboration between ecologists focused on understanding natural systems and planners balancing social, environmental, and economic priorities. Drawing from the socially-situated definition of 'sustainability', we sought to understand the relationship between ecologists and planners by probing how planners in the southeastern US prioritize and engage with biodiversity conservation and ecological information, and how context influences these decisions. We find that context matters, e.g., higher jurisdictional population density was positively associated with prioritizing tree cover and diversity. We find, also, that while biodiversity conservation and ecological information are valuable to planners, planners rely heavily on their colleagues to inform conservation-related activities and prioritize conservation topics that differ from ecological research foci. Improved communication by ecologists and context-specific transdisciplinary sustainability research, especially that which incorporates the primary role of elected officials in biodiversity conservation, may help to integrate ecological science and planning practice.

Spatiotemporal Characteristics of Ecological Conditions and Its Response to Natural Conditions and Human Activities during 1990⁻2010 in the Yangtze River Delta, China.

The Yangtze River Delta (YRD) region, including Shanghai City and the Jiangsu and Zhejiang Provinces, is the largest metropolitan region in China. In the past three decades, the region has experienced an unprecedented process of rapid and massive urbanization, which has dramatically altered the landscape and detrimentally affected the ecological environments in the region. In this paper, we analyzed the spatiotemporal variations of ecological conditions (Eco_C) via a synthetic index with analytic hierarchy processes in the YRD during 1990⁻2010. The relative contributions of influencing factors, including two natural conditions (i.e., elevation (Elev) and land-sea gradient (Dis_coa)), three indicators of human activities (i.e., urbanization rate (Urb_rate), per capita GDP (Per_gdp), the percentage of secondary and tertiary industry employment (Per_ind)), to the total variance of regional Eco_C were also investigated. The results showed that: (1) The Eco_C over YRD region was "Moderately High", which was better than the national average and demonstrated obvious spatial variations between south and north. There existed fluctuations and an overall increasing trend for Eco_C during the study period, with 20% of the area being deteriorated and 40% being improved. (2) The areas with elevation below 10 m was relatively poor in Eco_C, while the regions above 1000 m showed the best Eco_C and had the most obvious changes (9.33%) during the study period. (3) The selected five influencing factors could explain 91.0⁻94.4% of the Eco_C spatial variability. Elevation was the dominant factor for about 42.4⁻52.9%, while urbanization rate and per capita GDP were about 32.5% and 9.3%.

Mapping Water Vulnerability of the Yangtze River Basin: 1994-2013.

A holistic understanding of the magnitude and long-term trend of water vulnerability is essential for making management decisions in a given river basin. Existing procedures to assess the spatiotemporal dynamic of water vulnerability in complex mega-scale river basins are inadequate; a new method named ensemble hydrologic assessment was proposed in this study, which allows collection of data and knowledge about many aspects of water resources to be synthesized in a useful way for vulnerability assessment. The objective of this study is to illustrate the practical utility of such an integrated approach in examining water vulnerability in the Yangtze River Basin. Overall, the results demonstrated that the ensemble hydrologic assessment model could largely explain the spatiotemporal evolution of water vulnerability. This paper improves understanding of the status and trends of water resources in the Yangtze River Basin.

[Near surface CO2 concentration and its quantitative relationship with character of underlying surface in Shanghai City, China].

Land use change and fossil fuel combustion due to urbanization have a significant effect on global carbon cycle and climate change. It's important to have an explicit understanding of the spatial distribution of CO2 to recognize and control GHG emission, which is helpful to reduce human-induced contribution to global climate change. The study area of this project was set in the city of Shanghai with intensive human activity and rapid urbanization. The monitoring of near surface CO2 concentration along 3 transects was conducted across an urban-rural gradient by means of near infrared gas analyzer Li-840A in spring, 2014. Remote sensing data were also used to derive underlying surface information. Further quantitative analysis of the mechanism of CO2 concentration's response to the characteristics of underlying surface was presented in this paper. The results showed that the average near surface CO2 concentration was (443.4±22.0) µmol . mol-1. CO2 concentration in city center was in average 12.5% (52.5 µLmol . mol-1) higher than that in the suburban area. Also, CO2 concentration showed a significant spatial differentiation, with the highest CO2 concentration in the northwest, the second highest in the southwest, and the lowest in the southeast, which was in accordance with the urbanization level of the underlying surface. The results revealed that the vegetation coverage rate (CVeg) was an important indicator to describe near surface CO2 concentration with a negative correlation, and the impervious surface area coverage rate (CISA) had lower explanatory power with a positive correlation. The study also found that the determination coefficient (R2) between CO2 concentration (CCO2) and CISA or CVeg achieved its highest value when the buffer distance was 5 km, and their quantitative relationships be described by a stepwise regression equation: CCO2=0.32CISA-0.89CVeg+445.13 (R2 =0.66, P<0.01).

[Spatiotemporal pattern of carbon sources and sinks in Yangtze River Delta region, China].

Yangtze River Delta region is the world's sixth and China's largest urban agglomeration. Its rapid and massive urbanization has also caused a series of ecological and environmental impacts. This paper accounted the inventory of carbon sources and sinks in Yangtze River Delta region during 1995-2010 and analyzed their spatiotemporal patterns. It was found that the carbon sinks increased by 9.43 million tons from 1995 to 2010, in which forest ecosystem net production in Zhejiang Province was the largest contributor. The "grain for green" policy implemented since 2003 in China played a significant role in increasing the forest area and the carbon sinks. The carbon sources increased by 327 million tons, and energy consumption and industrial processes based emissions accounted for 96% of total carbon sources in 2010. Due to the large share of manufacturing and heavy industries in economy and their dependence on the high carbon intensity energy, either the amount or the growth speed of carbon emissions in Jiangsu Province was the top one in the whole region. Moreover, because the growth speed of net carbon emissions that occurred upon the built-up land was much faster than the sprawl speed of urban built-up land, the net carbon emission intensity kept increasing in the whole region, in which Jiangsu Province demonstrated the fastest increase.

Potential for nutrient removal by integrated remediation methods in a eutrophicated artificial lake - a case study in Dishui Lake, Lingang New City, China.

A new integrated water remediation technology, including a floating bed, a buffer zone of floating plants, enclosed 'water hyacinth' purification, economic aquatic plants and near-shore aquatic plant purification, was used in Dishui Lake to improve its water quality. A channel of 1,000 m length and 30 m width was selected to implement pilot-scale experiments both in the static period and the continuous water diversion period. The results showed that the new integrated water remediation technology exhibited the highest removal rate for permanganate index in a static period, which achieved 40.6%. The average removal rates of total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH3-N) and total phosphorus (TP) in a static period were 23.2, 21.6 and 19.1%, respectively. However, it did not exhibit an excellent removal rate for pollutants in the continuous water diversion period. The average removal rates for all pollutants were below 10%. In winter, the new integrated remediation technology showed efficient effects compared to others. The average removal rate for CODMn, TN, NH3-N and TP were 7, 5.3, 7.6 and 6.5%, respectively. Based on our results, the new integrated water remediation technology was highly efficient as a purification system, especially during the static period in winter.

[Quantitative analysis of the built-up area expansion in Su-Xi-Chang region, China].

Based on RS-derived maps and socio-economic statistics, this paper analyzed the spatiotemporal dynamic pattern and driving mechanism of built-up area expansion in Su-Xi-Chang region from 1990 to 2010. 3S-based spatial analysis techniques were used, landscape expansion indices were calculated, and multiple stepwise regression models were also used. In the past 20 years, the built-up area had experienced rapid-moderate-accelerating expansion stages, which was strongly affected by the national development strategies and policies regarding land use. During the study period, the built-up area had increased by 2218.9 km2 mainly due to the encroaching from paddy field, dryland and artificial ponds. From 1990-1995, the pattern of built-up area expansion was dominated by the infilling and edge-expansion type; from 1995-2000, the outlying-type had overplayed infilling and edge-expansion types due to policy restrictions on the latter; after 2000, the outlying-type growth had decreased by a large extent, whereas the infilling mode had increased dramatically, which resulted in the spatially compact pattern of the newly built-up area. The increase of urban population and the boom of regional economy were the major driving forces of built-up area expansion. The study implied that improvements were urgently needed in land management system and high-efficiency use of cropland. Promoting the compact development of built-up area was also crucial for striving toward regional sustainability.