Zhifu Wang

An important problem currently faced by karst rocky desertification management is the degradation of vegetation fruits, which encourages the search for a solution for the sustainable growth of vegetation. Water and fertilizer are key factors affecting crop quality (the formation of soluble solids, protein, amino acids, soluble sugar content, etc.). A comprehensive review of research related to water–fertilizer coupling and crop quality improvement may be beneficial for rocky desertification control. This study analyzed 427 related papers, and the results showed that: (1) the number of published papers showed an “S” curve growth trend over time, indicating that research in the field of water–fertilizer coupling has entered a mature stage after rapid growth, yet it is still in the initial stage in karst areas; (2) the research was mainly theoretical, but also included technology research and development, model construction, demonstration and extension, and monitoring and evaluation; (3) except for research related to greenhouse facilities, the research areas are mainly located in arid and semi-arid regions. The study further revealed (4) the frontier theory of water–fertilizer coupling and crop quality research. Finally, it was found that the theoretical and technical studies related to water–fertilizer coupling and crop quality improvement in karst areas are insufficient. Whether the existing theories and techniques are applicable to karst areas needs further verification. In addition to the areas of selecting germplasm with high water/fertilizer utilization efficiency and tolerance to rocky desertification, further improvement in the dynamic model of water–fertilizer coupling and the construction of a more applicable water–fertilizer coupling model could also be future research hotspots.

In recent years, in the face of the deterioration of the ecological environment, the research on forest ecological assets (FEA) has increasingly become a focal area of ecological research. To understand the current research progress and future prospects, this paper classifies and summarizes the main progress and achievements related to FEA in terms of theoretical studies, index systems, technical methods, and accounting models. In view of the existing research results, this paper proposes seven key scientific and technical problems and prospects to be solved, including the unification of the concept of ecological assets, the focus of future research on FEA, the construction of an evaluation index system according to local conditions, the integration of data assimilation methods that complement ground and remote sensing observations, the study of the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of forest ecological assets, the study of the net value of FEA, and the preservation and appreciation of FEA.

With a changing climate and socio-economic development, ecological problems are increasingly serious, research on ecosystem vulnerability and ecological resilience has become a hot topic of study for various institutions. Forests, the “lungs of the earth”, have also been damaged to varying degrees. In recent years, scholars have conducted numerous studies on the vulnerability and resilience of forest ecosystems, but there is a lack of a systematic elaboration of them. The results of a statistical analysis of 217 related documents show: (1) the number of studies published rises wave upon wave in time series, which indicates that this area of study is still at the stage of rising; (2) the research content is concentrated in four dimensions—ecosystem vulnerability assessment, ecosystem vulnerability model prediction, ecological resilience, and management strategies—among which the ecosystem vulnerability assessment research content mainly discusses the evaluation methods and models; (3) the research areas are mainly concentrated in China and the United States, with different degrees of distribution in European countries; and (4) the research institutions are mainly the educational institutions and forestry bureaus in various countries. In addition, this paper also reveals the frontier theory of forest ecosystem vulnerability and resilience research from three aspects—theoretical research, index system, and technical methods—puts forward the problems of current research, and suggests that a universally applicable framework for forest ecosystem vulnerability and resilience research should be built in the future, and theoretical research should be strengthened to comprehensively understand the characteristics of forest ecosystems so that sustainable management strategies can be proposed according to local conditions.