Protection and development of the Yangtze River has been the focus of multi-disciplinary research in geography, hydrology, ecology, regional economics and environmental science. Based on the socio-economic statistics, hydrology and water environment monitoring data in the past 30 years and related studies, this paper analyzed the basic situation and main challenges faced in the protection and development of the Yangtze River in the recent 30 years, and proposed the policy suggestion to promote the coordination between the protection and development of the Yangtze River. The results showed that: （1) The economic outputs and urbanization level of the Yangtze River Basin have been continuous growing, its status in China has been significantly improved, the regional development gap has been basically stable, and the resident income has increased rapidly in the recent 30 years; (2) The ecological protection system has been basically established, and pollutant emissions control and regional coordinated development have both achieved some progress, while the level of energy saving and consumption reduction and integrated development need to be improved urgently; （3) The protection and development of the Yangtze River are mainly facing four challenges, including increasingly prominent trade-offs between protection and development, lack of overall planning of industrial development and spatial layout, prominent problems with water environment, water ecology and water disasters and lack of effective coordination management; （4) A comprehensive management mechanism of the protection and development of the Yangtze River was suggested to be established from four aspects, including a stakeholders jointly negotiate decision-making mechanism of river basin integrated management, a unified environmental protection supervision and law enforcement and risk emergency management system, a multi-level control mechanism of ecological protection and space development, and one market-oriented two-way compensation as the core of the ecological compensation system.

The three Gorges Reservoir Area(TGRA) has undergone significant land use change due to construction of the Three Gorges project in China, which results in a series of impacts on human economic activities and natural ecosystems. Exploring the pattern of land use pattern and its evolution in the TGRA has important theoretical value and practical significance for optimizing the territorial space pattern and innovating the regulation path of the human earth system. Hence, we used remote sensing image data of four epochs from 1990 to 2020 to investigate pattern of land use dynamics in the TGRA based on space exploration and statistical analysis. Additionally, we explored the leading driving mechanism and the path that achieve the coordination of human-earth system for the TGRA. The results showed that:(1) The main land use types for the TGRA are cultivated land(37.64%) and forest land(47.12%), while the built-up land is with the proportion of less than 2%.The ecological land such as forest land, grassland, and water area is as high as 60%.(2) Each land type for the TGRA shows obvious gradient distribution from belt-shaped center to edge, in which forest land proportion increases with more regular shape and weaker connectivity degree, while built-up land and cultivated land are fragmented but more aggregated.(3) From 1990 to 2020, the cultivated land and grassland decreased by 4.01% and 21.27%, respectively, and the forest land and built-up land increased by 2.48% and 477.4%, respectively. The degree of overall landscape fragmentation and landscape diversity have increased. Driven by humanistic and policy factors, it shows the trend of ecological restoration, which generally presents the compound transformation of the ecological economy, and the human-earth relationship also tends to be harmonious and symbiotic.(4) The ways to realize the coordination of the human-earth system in the TGRA include innovating the strategic system of “three modernizations”(systematization, intensification and efficiency), optimizing the “production-living-ecological” space, promoting the reconstruction and functional integration of regional space, and realizing the balance among quality, space and industry form; constructing a three-dimensional ecological industrialization regional integration path to promote the coupling and coordinated development of human-earth system in the reservoir area; exploring the collaborative observation system in the reservoir area, promotingnetwork monitoring, geographic engineering and intelligent decision-making; building a multi-level related management and control system for key element areas, and improving the comprehensive response ability of the regional system in multi-scale, multi-situation and multiple ways.

The protection and development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt is a major national territorial strategy in China, of which the protection and restoration of the eco-environment along the Yangtze River is one of the most important parts. Since the strategy of ‘to step up conservation of the Yangtze River and stop its over development’ has been put forward by the central government, various central ministries and local authorities has actively initiated eco-environment protection projects and green transformation development policies. After years of the efforts, eco-environmental protection in the Yangtze River Economic Belt has reached a milestone, which calls for a timely re-examination. This study systematically sorted out and investigated and analyzed the governance effects and green development trend of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. It also identified the main problems and put forward policy implications. These results are expected to provide reference for further implementation of Yangtze River Protection Strategy and the practices of the Yangtze River environment protection and ecological restoration.

Urban coordinated development is a hot issue that economic geographers pay attention to, and it is also one of the important ways to achieve the goal of high-quality development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Based on the theory of complex ecosystem, regional innovation system, and relational economic geography, the paper constructs the evaluation index system of the city's coordinated development ability in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. With the help of quantitative methods such as spatial correlation and Zipf scale-rank rule, calculates and analyzes the coordinated development capability of cities in 2021. Results show that the coordinated development pattern of cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt is generally higher in the east and lower in the west, with an olive-shaped distribution, and there are obvious differences in urban levels; the four sub-fields of economic development, technological innovation, exchange services and ecological support complement each other and have a positive correlation; the three major urban agglomerations play an obvious role in the strategic guidance and support capability of the coordinated development of cities in the Yangtze River Economic Belt. Finally, this paper proposes that we can strive to achieve the national strategic goal of the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt by promoting the coordinated development of large, medium and small cities, integrating the four chains, improving the comprehensive efficiency of the regional innovation system, and cultivating new advantages of all-round opening.

Energy is the foundation of economic and Social Development. Since the 21st century, the Yangtze River Economic Belt has experienced the rapid development of industrialization and urbanization. Over the past two decades, the economic growth of the Yangtze River economic belt has been closely related to the changing trend of energy consumption, and it also has greatly affected the carbon emissions and smog pollution of fossil energy consumption. As an important link between energy elements and ecological environment, industry plays a vital role in economic activities. In order to solve the ecological and environmental pollution problems, such as carbon emissions and smog caused by energy consumption in the Yangtze economic belt, we must utilize the intermediary role of scientific and technological innovation, take industry as the breakthrough point, and highlight the guidance of the concept of green development, strengthening the building of green innovation industrial chains, promoting the industrial clustering and regional collaborative innovation, and continuously promoting green industrial restructuring and upgrading.

Wetland is one of the three ecological systems on earth, and it is also the most closely related with human production and life. From West to east, the Yangtze River flows through three steps geomorphology and many climatic zones in our country, wetland types and biodiversity are rich. However, the rapid economic and social development have also brought great challenges to the protection of the Yangtze River Wetland. In this paper, the characteristics of water cycle and the relationship between water cycle and habitats of typical natural wetlands such as the Yangtze plateau swamp, plateau lake, the lakes that connecting the Yangtze River, middle and lower stream beach and estuarine coast were separately discussed, to provide reference for the protection of the Yangtze River Wetland. The analysis shows that the vertical water cycle of the Yangtze Plateau, the horizontal water cycle of the lakes and rivers in the middle and lower reaches, and the tide of the Yangtze estuary are the key hydrological factors to maintain the ecological function of the wetland respectively. Climate change and human activities are the main factors affecting wetland water cycle and ecological function, plateau wetland and estuary of the Yangtze River are more significantly affected by climate change. The basic principle of wetland protection should be to maintain its natural water cycle as far as possible, and the best plan is to take adaptive measures of protection and management.

As China’s economy turns to the stage of high-quality development, it is of great significance to explore the relationship between scientific and technological innovation and urbanization for the realization of regional high-quality development. Taking 41 cities in the Yangtze River Delta as the research object, this research constructs the index system of urban science and technology innovation ability and urbanization quality, uses the coefficient of variation method, coupling coordination degree model and Moran index to study the coupling coordination degree and evolution process of science and technology innovation ability and urbanization quality, and deeply investigates the key coupling subsystems and elements. The results show that: （1)Urbanization in the Yangtze River Delta has undergone an evolutionary process starting from the core cities, extending along the transport arteries and eventually becoming pan-homogeneous;(2)The process of science and technology innovation lags behind the urbanization process, but the spatial and temporal evolution patterns of the two show a high degree of process fitting. The spatial spillover effect of the coupled development of science and technology innovation and urbanization gets enhanced with the increase of the level of coupled and coordinated development. The increase of science and technology innovation capacity is more crucial to the coupled and coordinated development of the two systems；（3）The coupling of science and technology innovation and urbanization has significant stage characteristics and shows spatial divergence over time. The coupling point changes over time and focuses on the social development gradually, which is the key to the coupling of science and technology innovation and urbanization. The study points out that paying attention to the social development construction of urbanization, the construction of regional innovation diffusion channels, the regional social interoperability, and the discovery of coupling points for the coordinated development of science and technology innovation and urbanization based on process fitting will help improve the level of coordinated development of science and technology innovation and urbanization.

New infrastructure construction is an important choice for urban construction in the critical stage of the transformation from extensive epitaxial development to intensive green convolution. Based on the the panel data of 33 cities in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River from 2008 to 2019, this paper from the perspective of the “Production-Living-Ecological” Space, explores and discusses the mechanism of the new infrastructure construction and the urban green transformation by using the OLS regression, spatial measurement and stepwise regression methods. The results showed that: （1) First, the new infrastructure construction could enable the urban green transformation in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and the enabling effect on the transformation of ecological space was more prominent than the transformation of production space and living space; (2) Second, the new infrastructure construction had a spatial spillover effect on urban green transformation, and the spatial factors had accelerated effect, which strengthens the positive effect of new infrastructure construction on urban green transformation；（3) Third, through green technology innovation effect, enterprise digitalization effect and environmental regulation orientation effect, new infrastructure construction had a differentiated effect on the “Production-Living-Ecological” space transformation, and then promoted urban green transformation of cities. Among them, green technology mainly drove the transformation of production space, enterprise digitalization focused on enabling the transformation of living space, and environmental regulation promoted the transformation of ecological space. Based on the above conclusions, we proposed the following suggestions: building a new ecological infrastructure system, strengthening green technology innovation, accelerating enterprise digitization, and implementing diversified environmental regulation tools.

The Three Gorges Project is the largest water control project in the world. The construction of the Three Gorges Project has a certain degree of influence on the plants in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area, especially the rare and endangered plants. The rare and endangered plants in the Three Gorges Reservoir Area are of great significance in biodiversity conservation and have been widely concerned by scholars at home and abroad. Systematic research on the rare and endangered plants in the three Gorges Reservoir Area is an important basis for scientific guidance of their conservation. This paper systematically reviewed the studies on the rare and endangered plants in the Three Gorges Reservoir area, focused on the population status, physiological ecology, endangerment factors, reproduction techniques and ex situ conservation, and put forward some suggestions for their future conservation based on the research status of the rare and endangered plants in this area, in order to provide reference for the protection of the rare and endangered plants in there.

The ecological environment is fragile and the frequency of drought event has gradually increased in recent year in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi region. Therefore, it is of great importance to study the mechanism of vegetation response to meteorological drought for regional water resources management and comprehensive drought coping strategy. In this paper, based on the GIMMS NDVI data and the multiscale(1/3/6/9/12/24 months) Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index(SPEI) data from 1982 to 2015, the spatial and temporal variations of vegetation cover and its response mechanism to meteorological drought were analyzed using trend analysis method and correlation analysis method. The results indicated that the interannual and seasonal NDVI increased significantly in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guangxi region from 1982 to 2015, and the growth rate of NDVI in karst area was higher than that in non-karst area. The improvement trend of vegetation cover was obvious in karst area, but the spatial distribution was significantly different. The maximum correlation coefficients of interannual NDVI to SPEI were mainly positive at six time scales. In the vast majority of areas, NDVI was sensitive to SPEI-1 and SPEI-3, especially in karst area. The maximum correlation coefficients between seasonal NDVI and SPEI were all dominated by positive correlations at six time scales, and there were seasonal difference in response time. The maximum correlation coefficients between NDVI and SPEI was mainly positive in the growing season at six time scales. The area with positive maximum correlation coefficients tended to decrease as the time scale of SPEI increased, indicating that NDVI was more sensitive to SPEI at a short time scale. The response characteristic of different vegetation types to SPEI varied at six time scales, but all were significantly correlated with SPEI at a short time scale. The results of this study could provide theoretical reference for the rational management of water resources and the integrated response to drought in Yunnan, Guizhou and Guizhou region.

Analyzing the temporal and spatial evolution relationship between ecosystem service value(ESV) and human activities is of great significance to explore the sustainable development of regional ecosystem of the areas undertaking industrial transfer. Based on the three periods of land use data in the dual core area of Wanjiang urban belt from 2000 to 2020, the equivalent factor method is used to calculate the ESV, and the temporal and spatial evolution of ESV is analyzed through the contribution degree, transfer matrix and spatial statistical methods. The spatiotemporal correlation between human activity intensity(HAI) and ESV is investigated using a geographic detector model. The results show that:(1) ESV shows the overall characteristics of continuous decline, with significant temporal and spatial changes and uneven decline range. The decline range is small from 2000 to 2010 and significant from 2010 to 2020. It is concentrated in areas with rapid urbanization.(2) The fundamental reason for the decline of ESV is the conversion of cultivated land to construction land. The increase of ESV is mainly due to the conversion of cultivated land to water area(2000-2010) and construction land to cultivated land(2010-2020).(3) The factor detection HAI q value showed an increasing trend, which better explained the spatial differentiation of ESV, and the two showed a negative correlation. The risk area detection found the HAI anomaly range in which ESV remained balanced. The research results can provide a scientific basis for the comprehensive green transformation and development, ecosystem regulation and optimization of regions undertaking industrial transfer.

The rock spurs, is important for controlling the river geomorphology, the development of the shoal and the stability of the shoreline in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River, and directly influences the economic and social activities about flood control, navigation and shoreline utilization. Previous studies have been mentioned rock spurs in Wuhan, whereas rarely present careful and comprehensive research. In this paper, based on the collection and analysis of a large number of historical documents, combined with field investigation, this study analyzed the distribution and composition of rock spurs and its influence on the early city development of Wuhan. We found that two important rock spurs, Hongshiji and Zhangwangji rock spurs besides Huanghuji and Yugongji rock spurs where mentioned frequently by local people. The geomorphology of river block in Guishan-Sheshan mountains decided by these rock spurs in Wuhan section, and also has an important effect on the channel characteristics of Yangtze River. Various rock spurs yield different effects for city development, the Hongshiji and Zhangwangji rock spurs were found in flood control, urban construction and water conservancy projects, Huanghuji and Yugongji rock spurs are more commonly found in literature of humanities and social sciences. There are play a supporting role in the planning and construction of the city walls of Hanyang and Wuchang cities, and are base points of the embankment construction along the Yangtze River. Furthermore, it contains military, landscape significance and city cultural value.

Danjiang River Basin is an important water source of the middle route of South to North Water Transfer Project. The water quality and quantity in Danjiang River Basin are crucial for the water safety of Beijing, Tianjin, Hebei and Henan. In order to reveal the response of runoff and sediment to land use change in the Danjiang River Basin, this paper quantitatively analyzed the changes of runoff and sediment under different land use scenarios by using Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT ) model and land use data from year 2000, 2008 and 2018. The results showed that: (1) During the period from year 2000 to 2018, the area of cultivated land decreased by 1 400.98 km2, while the area of forest land, grassland, urban land, and unused land increased by 938.20 km2, 400.04 km2, 43.53 km2 and 12.44 km2 in Danjiang River Basin, respectively. (2) The SWAT modeling results showed that the decrease of runoff and sediment could be due to the decrease of cultivated land and grassland area and the increase of forest land. During scenario year 2000 to 2008, land use change casued a reduction of 27 million m3 (-2.16%) in averaged annual runoff and a reduction of 11 900 tons (-6.74%) in averaged annual sediment, respecitivly. During scenario year 2008 to 2018, land use change caused a decrease of 168 billion m3 (-13.73%) in averaged annual runoff and 89 700 tons (-54.46%) in averaged annual sediment, respectively. (3) The water yield of Danjiang River Basin is higher in the upper and lower reaches while lower in the middle reaches; The sediment yield is lower in the upper and middle reaches while higher in the lower reaches. This study can provide a scientific basis for the optimization of land use strategy and the protection of water and soil resources in Danjiang River Basin.

Located in southeastern Hubei province, Junshui River is one of the rainstorm centers in the province, and area with frequent flood disasters. In order to explore the impact of land use change on flood processes, the impacts of forest land, residential land, grassland and cultivated land on flood processes was calculated based on SWAT model and extreme land use scenarios. The results show that: (1)SWAT model has good applicability in flood process simulation of Junshui River Basin. The verification results of Tongcheng (II) hydrological station show that the qualified rate of flood peak is 83.33%, the certainty coefficient ENS is greater than 0.80 and the deterministic coefficient R² is greater than 0.9. (2)In different land use types, flood peak discharge and flood volume were increased by residential land and cultivated land, and the increase of residential land was more significant. Both forest land and grassland have the effect of reducing flood peak and flood volume. (3)The impact of land use type change on small and medium flood processes is more significant, while the impact on large flood processes is relatively weak.

Stream morphology result from the combined effect of internal and external dynamic conditions. Capacities of the river basin, such as river drainage, river erosion, and surface and water infiltration, can be obtained using morphometric analysis. The Qingjiang River is a typical mountain river basin in the Three Gorges karstic area. The rapid and efficient grasping of the overall distribution characteristics of groundwater resources in the Qingjiang watershed has been a challenge in water resources surveys in the area. For the above problem, Aster GDEM data were used to analyze 6 linear, 8 aerial, and 3 relief features of 24 sub-watersheds according to the groundwater potential characteristics indicated by different parameters. Each parameter is assigned a sequence value. The sum of the sequence values of different parameters is used as the priority sequence of different sub-watersheds. Further more, the results validated with the discharge of the springs, show that the prioritization of the Qingjiang watershed is well correlated with the groundwater potential zones. The higher prioritization basins are likewise areas of abundant groundwater resources. In Qingjiang catchment, comparing with upper and lower reaches of Qingjiang River, the northern tributaries in the middle reaches are abundant in groundwater resources. This study reveals the importance of DEM data in the evaluation of water system features and in the extraction of the related parameter, and provides new ideas for water resources evaluation and management.

In order to explore the influence of lithologic and chronostratigraphic changes on the spatial distribution of soil zinc, the geostatistical analysis and GIS were used to carry out the spatial interpolation of soil Zn content for 262 sampling points in Guizhou Province; meanwhile, geological map and lithology map of Guizhou Province were used to overlay and analyze with soil Zn content by spatial interpolation. The result show that the conent of soil Zn could be divided into three zones in Guizhou province: low and middle zinc zone(0-80 mg/kg), rich zinc zone(80-200 mg/kg) and warning zone(＞200 mg/kg). Moreover, the nugget coefficient of soil zinc in Guizhou province was 0.48, which indicates that the distribution of soil zinc has moderate spatial autocorrelation. Namely, the warning zone is mainly distributed in the Carboniferous and Permian strata, the rich zinc zone is mainly distributed in the Triassic and Cambrian strata, and the low and middle zinc zone is mainly distributed in the Sinian and Ordovician strata respectively. Also, in the same chronostratigraphic unit, the effects of carbonate rocks on soil Zn content level is greater than that of clasolite, which the areas with higher proportion of carbonate rocks exist more obvious phenomenon of soil Zn enrichment. As a result, the spatial heterogeneity of soil Zn content is obviously related to the chronostratigraphic unit, which the proportion of carbonate rock is the dominant factor restricting the enrichment of soil Zn, and changes of stratigraphic age and lithological combination in Guizhou Province are the main reasons for the spatial heterogeneity of Zn content in the soils. The rich zinc zone of soil is a key area for the development of Zn-rich agricultural products.

The stability of the terrace ridge is a key factor for terrace construction. Meanwhile soil erodibility has effect on the stability of the terrace ridge. To discuss soil erodibility of terrace ridge, embedded terrace ridges were taken as the research object in Anju district of Suining City, which were built in 2015, 2017 and 2019, respectively. Combined with field sampling and indoor analysis, the K of EPIC model was adopted to represent soil erodibility characteristics. The soil erodibility and influencing factors of terrace ridges were analyzed.The results showed that the K value ranged from 0.05 to 0.06(t·hm2·h)/ (MJ·mm·hm2). With increase of construction years, the K value decreased, soil erodibility decreased significantly when embedded terrace ridges were constructed after 5 years. With increase of construction years, the contained clay particles decreased, meanwhile the content of silt and sand particles increased. There were significant differences in soil PAD, ELT, D, air-dried MWD and air-dried GMD between terrace field and terrace ridge at 1 year or 3 years after terrace ridge construction, but no significant differences at 5 years after terrace ridge construction. The soil bulk density at 1 year after terrace ridge construction was significantly higher than those of 3 years and 5 years, which indicated that the physical properties of embedded terrace ridges improved significantly after 3 years construction.With increase of construction years,soil organic matter increased and reached a significant level at 5 years after construction.K was significantly positively correlated with PAD, ELT and water stable D, significantly negatively correlated with air-dried GMD and water stable MWD, and significantly negatively correlated with air-dried MWD and water stable GMD. At 5 years after terrace ridge construction, K was significantly reduced, which was strongly related to soil aggregates. Therefore, embedded terrace ridges can be popularized and applied in the area. 

Soil bank slope collapse is the most common and increasingly serious geological disaster in the Three Gorges Reservoir (TGR) area. Determining the characteristics and development and distribution of bank collapse is one of the key tasks in the prevention and control of geological disasters in the reservoir area. During the lower water level operation period of the TGR, a comprehensive bank collapse survey was carried out in the Zigui-Fuling section of the reservoir. The typical soil bank collapse section of the reservoir were determined, and the main influencing factors of the soil bank collapse were summarized.The bank section of Wushan Reservoir was taken as an example to evaluate the susceptibility of soil bank slope to bank collapse. The results shown that the material composition of the bank collapsed frequently is mainly cohesive soil mixed with broken stones, and the soil slope collapses of the banks of Badong, Wushan, Fengjie and other reservoir banksare the most developed; the internal cause of soil bank slope collapse is geological structure, formation lithology, bank slope and shoreline shape, and the external cause is water action. The variation of reservoir water level and wave action are the main causes of soil bank slope collapse and progressive erosion; the influencing factors of bank collapse determined by the investigation are significantly related to the situation of bank collapse, and theprediction results of bank collapse susceptibility were in good agreement with the field survey. This study will provide necessary basic data and technical support for the prevention and control of geological disasters in the TGR area.

Red soil and purple soil are widely distributed in the upper and middle area of Changjiang River basin. In this study, the runoff and sediment yield characteristics of the two types of soil are compared by simulated rainfall experiments. The results of this study are able to provide a background database for supporting a coordinated deployment of control measures to alleviate water and soil loss along the Changjiang River. In the simulated rainfall experiments, the rainfall duration was set to 60 min while three rainfall intensities (0.8 mm/min, 1.1 mm/min, 1.4 mm/min) and four slope gradients (10°, 15°, 20°, 25°) were included as the variables for both types of soil. The results show that: (1) the initial erosion time of two types soil were shortened by the increasing rainfall intensities, and the initial erosion time of red soil was shorter than that of purple soil; (2) under the same rainfall intensities and slope gradients, the runoff depths were deeper and less time was needed to reach the runoff steady stage in the red soil cases compared with that of purple soil cases; (3) the erosion rate of red soil under a lower rainfall intensity was larger than that of purple soil while the situation was reversed under a higher rainfall intensity. These may result from the difference in the soil texture of the two types of soil .As the content of clayey particles are higher in red soil, most of the water ran off from the slope surface, which was formed by red soil, rather than infiltrates into the slope under the light rainfall. Therefore, the slopes formed by red soil suffered more intensive inter-rill erosion, inducing higher erosion rates than those of purple soil. However, the situation was reversed when under the heavy rainfall. As most of water also ran off from slopes surfaces formed by purple soil and the silty particle content is higher in purple soil, the type of erosion on the purple soil slope was changed from inter-rill erosion to rill erosion, accelerating the soil erosion rates to higher levels than those of red soil.