| In September 2015,the United Nations Sustainable Development Summit adopted the "2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development" and proposed 17 Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs).Among them,SDG 11.4 proposed“strengthen efforts to protect and safeguard the world’s cultural and natural heritage",and given the calculation methods of indicators such as "total expenditure per capita" and“proportion of protection budget".However,due to the difficulty of obtaining data and development differences between countries,these economic indicators have limitations when measuring SDG 11.4.In fact,SDGs aim to solve the development problems of social,economic and environmental dimensions.For natural heritage sites,ecological environment actually is the dimension that needs to be paid more attention.The ecological environment is the natural basis and important connotation for sustainable development.Therefore,studying how to scientifically evaluate the ecological environment quality of natural heritage sites can provide a reference for the quantitative characterization of SDG 11.4,and is of great significance to the protection of Authenticity and Integrity and the maintenance of Outstanding Universal Value of natural heritage sites.Taking China as an example,this paper selects typical natural heritage sites including Huangshan,Wulingyuan,Wuyishan,and Three Parallel Rivers as the study area based on the different economic conditions and natural environmental characteristics of eastern,central and western regions of China.The remote sensing based ecological index(RSEI)is used as an indicator for monitoring and evaluating the ecological environment quality of natural heritage sites.Using remote sensing images such as Landsat and MODIS as data sources,the RSEI model is built in Google Earth Engine(GEE).The RSEI time series results of each natural heritage site are retrieved in GEE,then GIS spatial analysis and change detection methods are used to evaluate the temporal and spatial dynamic changes of the ecological environment quality of each natural heritage site.Use Google Earth historical image data to explore the causes of changes in the ecological environment quality of natural heritage sites,and put forward suggestions on ecological environmental protection and sustainable development of natural heritage sites.Through the above research,the following conclusions are drawn:(1)The remote sensing based ecological index can be used as an effective indicator for monitoring the ecological environment of natural heritage sites,and can provide a scientific reference for quantitatively measuring SDG 11.4.The existing indicators for measuring SDG 11.4 are mostly economic indicators,which often have limitations and are difficult to compare in space-time dimensions.Considering from the ecological environment dimension,constructing RSEI ecological environment monitoring model can effectively measure the ecological environment quality of natural heritage sites and further reflect the status of sustainable development.Compared with economic indicators,remote sensing indicators not only have stable data sources and are easy to obtain,but also facilitate comparisons between different countries or regions.(2)The change trend of ecological environment quality in four natural heritage sites is different,indicating that the protection needs are different in different periods.The RSEI values of Huangshan and Wulingyuan showed a significant upward trend,Huangshan increased from 0.573 in 1992 to 0.638 in 2017,and Wulingyuan increased from 0.549 in 1992 to 0.622 in 2018,indicating that the ecological environment quality of the two natural heritage sites has improved significantly,and its protection requirements are relatively weak.This is reflected in SDG 11.4 as requiring relatively little protection investment.The RSEI values of Wuyishan and Three Parallel Rivers showed a fluctuating trend,Wuyishan increased from 0.549 in 1996 to 0.635 in 2014,and then dropped to 0.620 in 2018,indicating that the overall ecological environment quality has improved significantly.But there has been a slight degradation in recent years,indicating that its protection needs are increasing,so it is necessary to increase protection investment.The Three Parallel Rivers dropped from 0.644 in 2000 to 0.581 in 2004,and then increased to 0.615 in 2018,indicating that the ecological environment quality has improved slightly in recent years,but the overall situation is degraded,so its protection needs are strong,and the protection investment needs to be increased.(3)The temporal and spatial distribution of ecological environment grades and ecological environment change types of the four natural heritage sites are different,indicating that there are differences in the ecological environment quality within the natural heritage sites,and measures need to be taken according to different situations.Among the four heritage sites,the total proportion of RSEI grades of medium,good,and excellent all reached more than 70%,occupying a dominant position,indicating that the overall ecological environment quality is good,but areas with lower ecological grades still account for a larger proportion.The areas where the RSEI spatial changes show significant degradation are mainly urban construction areas,tourism development areas and areas along the roads.And the areas that show significant improvement are mainly returning farmland to forests areas and afforestation areas.The core zone of the four heritage sites are mainly in a stable state,but there are also degraded areas.The ecological environment quality of some areas in the Wulingyuan and Wuyishan core zone has been significantly degraded.(4)The main reasons for the improvement of the ecological environment quality of natural heritage sites are the implementation of measures such as closing mountains for afforestation,returning farmland to forests,planting trees,forest fire prevention,pest control,and legislative protection.The main reasons for the degradation of the ecological environment quality of natural heritage sites are natural factors such as weathering and erosion,as well as the comprehensive influence of human factors such as urbanization,tourism development and farmland reclamation.Urbanization and tourism development are the main influencing factors of ecological environment quality degradation of natural heritage sites. |
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