Ecological Indicators最新文献

{"title":"A watershed fragility index for assessing the vulnerability of river ecosystems","authors":"K.C.S. Lira ,&nbsp;M. van Zyll de Jong ,&nbsp;M. King ,&nbsp;I.G. Cowx","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113908","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113908","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Accelerating impacts of climate change have heightened the vulnerability of ecosystems, posing critical challenges to biodiversity conservation. While current climate change vulnerability assessment frameworks provide valuable insights, they often fall short of fully integrating local stressors. This paper introduces the Watershed Fragility Index (WFI), an innovative tool designed to address these gaps by offering a more comprehensive evaluation of multiple stressors. The WFI leverages Geographic Information Systems (GIS) for spatial analysis, Fuzzy logic for handling ecological complexity and variation, and the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) for prioritizing stressors. For a better comprehension of various exposures, 12 factors are assessed − flooding susceptibility, temperature change, wildfire potential, soil type, geology, distance from waterbodies, slope, altitude, land use and cover, distance from roads, watercourse barriers, and forest change. They are organized into different sub-indexes related to natural disturbances, environmental fragility, and anthropogenic stressors. The tool is demonstrated on the Humber River watershed in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, in eastern Canada. The results indicate that certain stressors create vulnerable areas near important lakes. Overall, the watershed is classified predominantly as low fragility. However, the most vulnerable regions, characterized by moderate fragility, are mainly found in the Lower Humber area, which also contains a larger area with roads, watercourse barriers, and steeper slopes. The outputs offer crucial insights to aid environmental planning within the Humber River watershed and can serve as an evaluation tool for other regions. The WFI is a novel tool for policy development, enabling environmental managers and conservationists to create targeted and adaptive strategies that enhance habitat and species resilience through comprehensive and integrated assessment.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113908"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144686006","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Evaluating dynamics of water yield and its driving forces in the Taihang Mountain Region, China","authors":"Bo Guo ,&nbsp;Hui Yang ,&nbsp;Chunyu Zhu ,&nbsp;Ying Guo ,&nbsp;Yuhan Zhao ,&nbsp;Jiansheng Cao ,&nbsp;Yanjun Shen","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113923","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113923","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Water yield (WY) is a critical indicator of water availability, playing a significant role in sustaining ecosystem stability. Understanding the factors influencing water yield is crucial for effective regional water resource management and the long-term sustainability of ecosystems. However, the dynamics of water yield and the driving mechanisms in the Taihang Mountain Region (TMR), particularly the influence of extreme precipitation, remain insufficiently understood. In this study, we employed the InVEST model to analyze water yield dynamics across the TMR. We introduced an analytical framework that integrates detrending analysis with scenario-based simulation to investigate the contributions of climate change (CC) and land use and land cover change (LUCC) to water yield. Furthermore, we applied the optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD) to examine the influence of precipitation characteristics on water yield. We found that water yield in the TMR exhibited a decreasing trend of −0.66 mm/yr from 1990 to 2020. Significant spatial heterogeneity was observed in water yield changes, with notable decreases predominantly distributed in the eastern slope of the TMR. CC and LUCC contributed 86.46 % and 13.54 % to water yield variation, respectively. Our findings revealed that changes in water yield in the TMR are strongly influenced by precipitation patterns, with precipitation trends and extreme precipitation serving as the primary drivers. Notably, in areas experiencing significant water yield decline, precipitation intensity plays a more dominant role than precipitation trends. Afforestation areas exhibited a significantly higher decline in water yield than non-afforestation regions from 1990 to 2020. These findings provide valuable insights for guiding afforestation projects in TMR.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113923"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144680252","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A water-carbon-economic model coupling system dynamics and InVEST for Wuhan’s sustainability assessment","authors":"Yixuan Diao ,&nbsp;Jun Xia ,&nbsp;Qianjin Dong ,&nbsp;Qiting Zuo ,&nbsp;Mengyun Xie ,&nbsp;Xiaofeng Peng ,&nbsp;Long Jiang","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113893","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113893","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Understanding the interactions between water security, carbon storage, and economic and social development (WCE) is critical for achieving sustainable urbanization. This study establishes a coupled WCE system model for Wuhan, China, by integrating System Dynamics (SD) and the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model to quantify dynamic socioeconomic processes and spatial ecological patterns. A mechanical model was further employed to quantify system coordination and assess urban sustainability. Future scenarios were simulated to identify optimal development pathways. The results showed: (1) During the historical period (2000–2020), green economic and social development enhanced resource utilization efficiency (+289%) but reduced ecological security levels (−41%). (2) WCE system coordination improved (0.45 → 0.68), while the primary constraint shifted from water scarcity to carbon storage deficit. (3) Future scenario simulations (2021–2030) indicate declining coordination under baseline scenario, whereas the low-carbon green strategy achieves optimal coordination (&gt;0.8), significantly outperforming ecological protection and high-intensity urbanization strategies. This work provides the first quantitative assessment of WCE interactions and coordination status in megalopolises along the Yangtze River Basin, demonstrating the advantage of SD-InVEST coupling in integrating socioeconomic dynamics with ecosystem spatial processes. The proposed framework offers a scientific tool for comprehensive urban planning incorporating water-carbon-economy nexus, with the low-carbon green pathway identified as essential for enhancing sustainability.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113893"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144672084","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Urban flood susceptibility mapping using deep and machine learning algorithms as a management tool: A case study of Sanandaj City, Iran","authors":"Ataollah Shirzadi ,&nbsp;Aryan Salvati ,&nbsp;Marzieh Hajizadeh Tahan ,&nbsp;Himan Shahabi ,&nbsp;Ehsan Jafari Nodoushan ,&nbsp;Mohsen Ramezani ,&nbsp;Mazlan Hashim ,&nbsp;John J. Clague","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113886","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113886","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Urban flooding is a complex natural hazard event that incorporates climate change impacts with urban planning and developing challenges, requiring comprehensive strategies for mitigation and adaptation. Flood susceptibility mapping is one of the first steps in an appropriate strategy to reduce economic disruption and damage to urban environments due to flooding. This paper proposes a family of new deep neural networks, namely “deep abstract networks” (DANet) algorithm, which has not been conducted earlier on the susceptibility assessment worldwide, to be trained for producing reliable urban flood susceptibility maps, using Sanandaj City, Iran, as an example. In this procedure, 174 urban and 174 non-urban flood locations are considered in tandem with 19 flood factors prioritized using the reliefF attribute evaluation (RAE) feature selection technique. We determine the goodness-of-fit and prediction accuracy of our models using sensitivity, specificity, accuracy, kappa, root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE), and area under the curve (AUC). Furthermore, the new proposed deep learning algorithm is compared to the five state-of-the-art benchmark learning algorithms, i.e., Convolutional Neural Network (CNN), Support Vector Machine with Linear (SVM-Linear) and with radial basis function (SVM-RBF), Artificial Neural Network-Multi-Layer Perceptron (ANN-MLP), and Logistic Regression (LR). Here, land use, building density, distances to buildings, rainfall, and distances to passages are the five most influential factors in urban flood occurrence in the study area. The DANet algorithm achieves RMSE = 0.535, AUC_model = 0.811, and AUC_map = 0.840, and thus outperforms the ANN-MLP, SVM-RBF, SVM-Linear, LR and CNN algorithms as an excellent alternative algorithm for managing areas prone to urban flooding with caution.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113886"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144680223","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Hydrological shifts from vegetation restoration in semi-arid regions: insights from the typical watersheds of the Yellow River","authors":"Hao Jia ,&nbsp;Biqing Tian ,&nbsp;Xiaoyan Song ,&nbsp;Wenyi Sun ,&nbsp;Xingmin Mu","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113924","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113924","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Vegetation restoration in semi-arid regions presents complex tradeoffs between ecological benefits and hydrological impacts. This study focused on three representative watersheds Loess Plateau the middle of the Yellow River in China—Huangfu (HFC), Yanhe (YH), and Juhe (JH)—each undergoing distinct land use scenarios: grassland restoration, conversion of cropland to artificial forest, and predominance of forest cover, respectively. We utilized the Soil and Water Assessment Tools (SWAT) to evaluate the impact of “Grain for Green” initiative on various hydrological elements—streamflow, evapotranspiration, soil moisture, and water yield. In these watersheds, vegetation restoration has resulted in a 10.86–43.47 mm increase in evapotranspiration, a 1.38–24.89 mm decrease in soil moisture, a 5.13 mm to 26.89 mm reduction in annual runoff depth, and a 5.94–18.58 mm decrease in water yield. Specifically, Natural grassland restoration in the HFC watershed increased evaporation by 15.06 mm, reduced soil moisture by 1.38 mm, reduced annual average runoff depth by 5.13 mm, and decreased water yield 11 mm. Large-scale conversion of cropland to artificial forest in the YH watershed significantly resulted in an increase in evaporation by 43.47 mm, accompanied by a reduction in soil moisture by 24.89 mm, meanwhile, vegetation restoration enhanced the catchment capacity of the watershed, reducing the annual runoff depth by 26.89 mm and the water yield by 18.58 mm. Nature forests in the JH watershed maintained stable precipitation-streamflow coupling relationship despite climate variability, and with the increase of natural forest land, the streamflow in the watershed decreased by 6.86 mm. This study provides robust quantitative insights into how various vegetation restoration scenarios alter key hydrological components, thereby elucidating the balance between ecosystem recovery and water resource dynamics in semi-arid watersheds.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113924"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144680253","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Spatiotemporal dynamics and drivers of algal blooms in chinese lakes: A multi-phenological index analysis","authors":"Yufeng Yang,&nbsp;Wei Gao,&nbsp;Yuan Zhang,&nbsp;Feilong Li,&nbsp;Fen Guo","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113919","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113919","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Algal blooms (AB) caused by eutrophication pose a global threat to freshwater ecosystems and human water security. Existing studies lack standardized definitions and methodologies for phenological indicators, hindering quantitative comparisons and comprehensive spatial heterogeneity assessments. Using daily MODIS data (2000–2023), this study systematically retrieved three phenological features (Frequency, Persistence and Coverage) with nine indicators for 359 lakes (&gt;10 km²) across four major lake zones in China (excluding the Tibetan Plateau). Spatiotemporal analysis, hierarchical clustering, and driving factor analysis were integrated to elucidate AB dynamics. Key findings include: (1) 63.3 % (228) of lakes experienced AB, among which 46.9 % showing significant increasing trends. Spatial heterogeneity revealed earlier outbreaks in southern lakes, prolonged persistence in central regions, and higher frequency in smaller lakes, and all three features exhibited upward trend. (2) Hierarchical clustering identified four lake types: Type 1 (small area, short persistence, frequent severe AB), Type 2 (large area, minimal frequency, persistence and coverage), Type 3 (medium-large area, high frequency and long persistence), and Type 4 (small-medium area, highest frequency and coverage), with spatial distributions linked to climate and human activities. (3) Natural factors (temperature and precipitation) dominated Frequency and Persistence (temperature-driven in Types 1 and 3; precipitation-driven in Type 4), while Coverage was primarily influenced by human activities (cropland and population density), except in Type 4. This multi-phenological framework clarifies spatiotemporal patterns and drivers of AB in Chinese lakes, offering scientific insights for ecological protection and water quality management.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113919"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144672085","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing the integrated conservation effectiveness of protected areas on forest ecosystems in the Three Parallel Rivers Region, China","authors":"Bingran Ma ,&nbsp;Hua Shen ,&nbsp;Chunting Feng ,&nbsp;Weiyang Zhao ,&nbsp;Wei Wang","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113906","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113906","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>Protected areas (PAs) are critical for safeguarding biodiversity and maintaining ecosystem services. Assessing the conservation effectiveness of PAs in preserving forest ecosystem is of considerable significance in promoting management and policy recommendations of PAs. However, studies on the integrated effectiveness of PAs in enhancing forest coverage, improving forest ecosystem services, and mitigating forest fragmentation remains relatively limited. In this study, we chose three indicators include fraction vegetation coverage (FVC), forest fragmentation index (FFI), and ecosystem services (ESs, including water retention, soil conservation, carbon sequestration, and habitat quality) to investigate the conservation effectiveness of PAs in preserving forest ecosystems within the Three Parallel Rivers Region (TPRR), China. The results indicated that during the past two decades (2001–2020), 48.81%, 52.11%, and 59.82% of the areas within PAs showed positive or stable trends in FVC, FFI, and ESs, respectively. The integrated assessment revealed mixed results: 33.03% of the area within PAs achieved high conservation effectiveness, while 60.73% showed medium effectiveness. Overall, while 93.76% of the area showed a positive trend in at least one of the three indicators, this highlights the complex trade-offs in conservation outcomes. Moreover, the influencing factors of integrated conservation effectiveness were analyzed using the random forest model, revealing that natural factors and the size of protected areas had the greatest impact. To further enhance overall conservation effectiveness, more stringent management measures should be implemented at the local level nature reserves in this region. This multi-indicator assessment reveals the complexity of forest ecosystems across different regions, which facilitates the incorporation of additional indicators and provides guidance for a more comprehensive evaluation of the conservation effectiveness of diverse natural ecosystems in future research.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113906"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144665877","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Connectivity between MPAs assessed by the temporal Lagrangian flow networks: A case study in a semi-enclosed sea","authors":"Xusheng Xiang ,&nbsp;Xueqing Zhang ,&nbsp;Li Xin ,&nbsp;Zilong Chen ,&nbsp;Bao Zhang ,&nbsp;Huiwang Gao","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113891","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113891","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The connectivity between Marine Protected Areas (MPA), defined as the migration and exchange of materials such as individuals or organisms, is critical for species dispersal and ecosystem recovery. In this study, the complex network framework is introduced to measure the connectivity between 22 MPAs in the Bohai Sea. A time-varying Lagrangian flow network is constructed based on particle transport. Subsequently, Dijkstra’s algorithm is utilized to identify the most probable paths (MPP) within the MPAs. The results indicate that the overall connectivity among the MPAs in the Bohai Sea is weak, with specific areas forming tightly connected clusters. The connection time between MPAs ranges from 10 to 70 weeks, and only 9 % of MPAs achieve connection within three months, which exceeds the survival time of most species’ larval stages. Louvain network clustering analysis reveals four main MPA communities in the Bohai Sea: Liaodong Bay, Qinhuangdao Coast, Bohai Bay, and Laizhou Bay, which are closely connected internally but sparsely connected to other communities. Four MPAs in Daling River estuary, Beidaihe marine park, Yellow River estuary, and Laizhou Bay shoal national marine ecological special protected area are identified as hub nodes, connecting the most of other MPAs in the community, acting as critical nodes for maintaining connectivity within the protected areas. Overall, the connectivity between MPAs is largely influenced by the Lagrangian residual currents in the Bohai Sea, with the central anticyclonic eddy and the western coastal current playing significant roles in facilitating MPA connectivity. This study offers a transferable framework for assessing MPA connectivity and provides guidance for optimizing MPA network design.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113891"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144665876","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Introducing evascape, a model-based soundscape assembler: impact of background sounds on biodiversity monitoring with ecoacoustic indices","authors":"Elie Grinfeder ,&nbsp;Christian Lorenzi ,&nbsp;Yann Teytaut ,&nbsp;Sylvain Haupert ,&nbsp;Jérôme Sueur","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113882","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113882","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The development of ecoacoustics and soundscape ecology is linked to the development of field recording techniques and the production of large and diverse sound databases representative of various environments. However, an important caveat in this approach lies in the lack of reference data, limiting the possibility of developing acoustic biodiversity indices and assessing their sensitivity to environmental change. To address this issue, previous studies have attempted to generate “engineered soundscapes”, that is artificial soundscape recordings which offer some control on, among other aspects, species diversity. Unfortunately, these tools lack complexity and realism, limiting their ecological validity. Here, we introduce Evascape, a Python algorithm informed by available knowledge in soundscape ecology aiming at producing assembled soundscapes with high ecological validity. The algorithm offers the possibility to control biophony (number of species, number of individuals, time organization), geophony (wind and rain with adjustable level), anthropophony (aircraft noise) and sound propagation effects (frequency-dependent attenuation function of the habitat). The algorithm was tested using an acoustic database collected in a protected European cold forest. The generated assembled soundscapes were then used to assess a selection of commonly-used ecoacoustic indices across a large number of controlled scenarios, and to identify the indices that respond most strongly to changes in species richness. Evascape opens the path to other ecoacoustics-related research programs, offering the possibility to design empirical and computational experiments with controlled soundscape parameters.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113882"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-20","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144665878","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Study on the water quality evolution mechanism of typical shallow lake based on in-depth mining of water quality indicators","authors":"Wenqiang Zhang ,&nbsp;Dianwei Zhang ,&nbsp;Xin Jin ,&nbsp;Baoqing Shan","doi":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113914","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.ecolind.2025.113914","url":null,"abstract":"<div><div>The water quality (WQ) of Baiyangdian Lake (BYDL), known as the ‘kidney of North China’, declined continuously for about four decades from the 1980s because of socioeconomic development. Since the Xiong’an New Area was established in 2017, remediation efforts have been implemented and the WQ has improved. In this study, we analyzed six years of WQ data from BYDL using ordinary least squares regression, time series analysis, and the Mann-Kendall trend test. The results reveal a marked improvement in WQ since 2018, with Class III accounting for over 60 % of observations. There were significant decreasing trends in chemical oxygen demand, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, ammonia nitrogen, and Chlorophyll-a (<em>p</em> &lt; 0.05) and an overall increasing trend in dissolved oxygen (<em>p</em> &lt; 0.05). The WQ indicators varied seasonally. The WQ improvements generally aligned with the timing and patterns of the major engineering interventions but short-term fluctuations in the WQ indicators may have been caused by climatic variability. The findings highlight the complexity of the WQ pattens in BYDL and illustrate that the management strategy shifted from an initial phase that focused on pollution control to a second phase of ecological restoration integrated with environmental governance. This information can be used to refine future restoration strategies for BYDL and to guide sustainable management practices in similar shallow lake systems.</div></div>","PeriodicalId":11459,"journal":{"name":"Ecological Indicators","volume":"178 ","pages":"Article 113914"},"PeriodicalIF":7.0,"publicationDate":"2025-07-19","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144663484","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"环境科学与生态学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}