Glaciers provide multiple ecosystem services (ES) to human society. Due to the continued global warming, the valuation of glacier ES is of urgent importance because this knowledge can support the protection of glaciers. However, a systematic valuation of glacier ES is still lacking, particularly from the perspective of ES contributors. In this study, we introduce the concept of emergy to establish a methodological framework for accounting glacier ES values, and take the Tibetan Plateau (TP) as a case study to comprehensively evaluate the spatiotemporal characteristics of glacier ES during the early 21st century. The results show that the total glacier ES values on the TP increased from 2.36E+24 sej/yr in the 2000s to 2.40E+24 sej/yr in the 2010s, with an overall growth rate of 1.6%. The values of the various services in the 2010s are ranked in descending order: climate regulation (1.59E+24 sej/yr, 66.1%), runoff regulation (4.40E+23 sej/yr, 18.4%), hydropower generation (1.88E+23 sej/ yr, 7.8%). Significantly higher glacier ES values were recorded in the marginal TP than in the endorheic area. With the exception of climate regulation and carbon sequestration, all other service values increased during the study period, partially cultural services, which have experienced rapid growth in tandem with social development. The results of this study will help establish the methodological basis for the assessment of regional and global glacier ES, as well as a scientific basis for the regional protection of glacier resources.

Extreme weather events are increasingly recognized as major stress factors for forest ecosystems, causing both immediate and long-term effects. This study focuses on the impacts experienced by the forests of Valdisotto, Valfurva, and Sondalo (28% of the total area is covered by forests) in Upper Valtellina (Italy) due to the Vaia storm that occurred in October 2018. To define the immediate impacts of Vaia, we assess the economic value of forest ecosystem services (ESs), particularly those provided by timber production and carbon sequestration, pre- and post-Vaia and during the emergency period. We used the market price method to assess the economic values of timber production and carbon sequestration, as these are considered to be marketable goods. Based on data processed from Sentinel-2 satellite images (with a spatial resolution of 10 m), our results show that, despite the reduction in forest area (-2.02%) and timber stock (-2.38%), the economic value of the timber production increased after Vaia due to higher timber prices (i.e., from a total of 124.97 million to 130.72 million). However, considering the whole emergency period (2019-2020), the total losses are equal to 5.10 million for Valdisotto, 0.32 million for Valfurva, and 0.43 million for Sondalo. Instead, an economic loss of 2.88% is experienced for carbon sequestration, with Valdisotto being the more affected municipality (-4.48% of the pre-Vaia economic value). In terms of long-term impacts, we discuss the enhanced impacts due to the spread of the bark beetle Ips typopgraphus.

The ecosystem services of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have been hot topics in recent decades due to their unique value, and the region's sensitivity to climate change and human activities is considered to be of major importance. However, few studies have focused on the variations of ecosystem services in response to traffic activities and climate change. This study applied different ecosystem service models, along with the buffer analysis, local correlation and regression analysis to quantitatively analyze the spatiotemporal variations of carbon sequestration, habitat quality, and soil reten-tion, further detected the climatic and traffic influences in the transport corridor region of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from 2000 to 2020. The obtained results showed the following: (1) The carbon sequestration and soil retention in-creased over time, while the habitat quality decreased during the railway construction period; in addition, the varia-tions of ecosystem services between the two periods exhibited substantial spatial differences. (2) The distance trends of ecosystem service variations were similar for the railway and the highway corridors, and the positive ecosys-tem service trends were mainly observed within 2.5 km and 2 km of railway and highway corridors, respectively. (3) The impacts of climatic factors on ecosystem services were predominantly positive; however, temperature and pre-cipitation displayed contrasting distance trends in their impacts on carbon sequestration. (4) The types of frozen ground and locations away from the railway or highway were the combined factors affecting the ecosystem services, among which carbon sequestration was negatively influenced by the distance from the highway in the continuous permafrost areas. It can be speculated that rising temperatures caused by climate change may intensify the decline of carbon sequestration in the continuous permafrost areas. This study provides guidance on ecological protection strategies for future expressway construction projects.

Polar ecosystems are the most important storage and source of climatically active gases. Currently, natural biogeochemical processes of organic matter circulation in the soil-atmosphere system are disturbed in urban ecosystems of the cryolithozone. Urbanized ecosystems in the Arctic are extremely under-investigated in terms of their functions in regulating the cycle of climatically active gases. The role of urban soils and soil-like bodies in the sequestration and stabilization of organic matter is of particular interest. The percentage of gravimetric concentrations of organic matter in Arctic urban soils are almost always determined by the method of dichromate oxidation and are subject to extreme variability (from tenths of a percent to more than 90% in man-made soil formations), but the average carbon content in the surface soil horizons can be estimated at 5-7%. The surface humus-accumulative horizons are represented by a variety of morphological forms with the content of organic matter of various origins. The work also focuses on those forms of organic matter, the content of which is extremely small, but very important for the biogeochemical functioning of soils-polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and components of petroleum products, as well as labile forms of soil organic matter. We recommend that further studies of the organic matter system be conducted in urbanized areas since the carbon cycle there is severely disrupted, as well as carbon flows. The urbanization and industrialization processes in the Arctic are progressing, which could lead to a radical transformation of carbon ecosystem services.

Research on mountain ecosystem services (MES) under the influence of climate change and human activities has gradually become the focus of academic attention in recent years. Here, this study analyzes the research hotspots and frontiers of this field based on metrics including main research forces, core journals and papers, research hotspots and topics by using the methods of bibliometrics and text mining. The results revealed the following: (1) the number of papers is increasing rapidly in recent years. From 2015 to 2019, 929 papers were published, with an average of 185 papers per year. But the average cited times of those papers is declining, dropped from 6.01 in 2016 to 4.2 in 2019. The USA, UK, and China rank the top three of the number of papers. Univ Maryland, Univ Oxford and Univ Wisconsin have the greatest influence, with an average of more than 77 citations per paper; (2) The most cited journals are PNAS, WETLANDS, ECOLOGY, AND SOCIETY, which are cited 191.54, 53.91, and 40.00 respectively. Most papers were published in OA journals including SUSTAINABILITY, WATER, Forests since 2017. Ten core papers undertaking knowledge transfer in this field have been identified; (3) analysis of the keywords found a new trend of integration of natural science and humanities. In two development stages of 2000-2014 and 2015-2019, the research hotspots mainly focused on mountain water resources, forest resources, land resources and the impact of climate change and human activities, and there are obvious differences and characteristics in different stages. The hotspot worthy of attention in the near future is the assessment of mountain ecosystem services capacity and value. This is the first comprehensive visualization and analysis of the research hotspots and trends of mountain ecosystem services.

The cryosphere is able to provide a variety of services for the benefit of human well-being and underpins regional sustainable development. The cryosphere deterioration induced by climate change is impacting the services and will subsequently impede the efforts to meet sustainable development goals (SDGs) in high mountain societies. Here, we detail the context of cryosphere services and establish a dataset for its linkage to SDGs. This allows us to uncover its roles in supporting SDGs, directly by a causal connection and indirectly through either cascading effects or interconnection among SDGs. We find that the SDGs in association with the basic needs of high mountain societies are mostly affected by the cryosphere services. The different types of services pitch in with distinctions to be embraced by various SDGs, whilst some play a prominent role in the contribution to a broad range of SDGs. We further investigate how the services behave in their contributions to SDGs, by taking a view via the lens of a network that deciphers the relationship between the services and SDG targets as well as the interconnections among SDG targets. With an insight into the centrality and modularity of services in the network, we then delineate the inherent criticality of services to SDG targets as a whole, and reveal the specificity of services that co-contribute to a cluster of SDG targets in each network community. We take out the services from the network and maintain their interlinks to the targets of each underlying SDG system represented in six key entry points, so that the services critical to the transformation pathways in the entry points for SDGs in high mountains can be identified. Finally, we discuss the trade-offs that can occur in high mountains, which is unique for the cryosphere services. It creates more complexity in the assessment of overall benefits that the cryosphere services may provide to SDGs, and urges the balance that has to be maintained in attaining those services for the transformation.

Wetlands are often considered as nature-based solutions that can provide a multitude of services of great social, economic and environmental value to humankind. Changes in land-use, water-use and climate can all impact wetland functions and services. These changes occur at scales extending well beyond the local scale of an individual wetland. However, in practical applications, engineering and management decisions usually focus on individual wetland projects and local site conditions. Here, we systematically investigate if and to what extent research has addressed the large-scale dynamics of landscape systems with multiple wetlands, hereafter referred to as wetlandscapes, which are likely to be relevant for understanding impacts of regional to global change. Although knowledge in many cases is still limited, evidence suggests that the aggregated effects of multiple wetlands in the landscape can differ considerably from the functions observed at individual wetland scales. This applies to provisioning of ecosystem services such as coastal protection, biodiversity support, groundwater level and soil moisture regulation, flood regulation and contaminant retention. We show that parallel and circular flow-paths, through which wetlands are interconnected in the landscape, may largely control such scale-function differences. We suggest ways forward for addressing the mismatch between the scales at which changes take place and the scale at which observations and implementation are currently made. These suggestions can help bridge gaps between researchers and engineers, which is critical for improving wetland function-effect predictability and management. (C) 2017 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.