Distribution and technical strategies of ecological protection and restoration projects for mountains-rivers-forests-farmlands-lakes-grasslands

The General Secretary of the central committee of Communist Party of China, Xi Jinping, proposed the concept of community of shared life composed of mountains-rivers-forests-farmlands-lakes-grasslands, which is of important guiding significance to ecological protection and restoration in China during the new era. The overall protection, systematic restoration, and comprehensive management of the community must involve important approaches to solve ecological-environmental problems, as well as inevitable requirements for promoting ecological civilization. Thus, under the organizations of related ministries, a total of 25 ecological protection and restoration pilot projects have been implemented across 24 provinces since 2016. Studies of the distribution and technical strategies of the pilot projects could be helpful for comprehensively promoting ecological protection and restoration. Based on the concepts and main tasks of the current ecological protection and restoration projects, the aim of the present study was to determine the distribution pilot projects and to summarize their technical strategies, as well as their achievements and shortcomings. The pilot projects are mainly distributed along key areas of the ecological security strategic pattern and belong to national key ecological functional areas, with great significance to ensure national ecological security and to promote regional ecological functions in China. Summarizing the engineering measures of the pilot projects revealed that the main technical strategies included the protection and restoration of important ecosystems, the protection of biodiversity, the protection and treatment of watershed water environments, the restoration and treatment of polluted and degraded land, the ecological restoration of mines, and the comprehensive treatment of land. Pilot projects have achieved ecological, social, and economic benefits but can still be improved, for example, by improving project distribution, highlighting integrated and systemic concepts, conducting natural recovery strategies, adopting scientific management strategies for monitoring and evaluation, and integrating the overall development of local economy, society, and ecology. Further research is needed to review the technical and institutional systems of the ecological protection and restoration projects, including the improvement of macro-ecological security strategies, intensification of regional ecosystem surveys and evaluations, optimiz