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RESEARCH HIGHLIGHT
03 March 2023

Human hunt at least 19% of bat species worldwide — especially flying foxes, which can have wingspans of 1.5 metres. More

Study site, tree selections, and drought-simulation experimentThis research was performed in Guangzhou (22°26′-23°56′N, 112°57′-114°03′E), which is a core city located in subtropical zones. With an area of 7434.4 km2 and a population of 18.87 million, Guangzhou’s urbanization rate has reached 86.46%. To cope with multiple environmental challenges, several urban-forest nurseries were established to cultivate and introduce various tree species. Among them, we selected the one in Tianhe District as our study site. This nursery was not only abundant with native and exotic tree species but also equipped with similar edatope in cities, which was ideal for our research.Tilia cordata Mill. (Tc) and Tilia tomentosa Moench (Tt), originating from the west of Britain and southeast of Europe, were common urban tree species planted in European cities. Based on their performance in providing ecological and landscape functions, these two tree species were considered to be introduced for urban greening. Therefore, Tilia cordata Mill. (Tc) and Tilia tomentosa Moench (Tt) were selected as our objectives, which were investigated for their growth and ecosystem services to evaluate their adaption in Guangzhou. In addition, a native tree species Tilia miqueliana Maxim (Tm) was also implemented concurrent measurement as a comparison.For each of the three surveyed tree species, ten trees with a diameter at breast height (DBH) around 5.5 cm and tree height around 2.5 m were chosen for our experiment, which were thought to possess similar initial statuses. To investigate the impact of drought on the growth and ecosystem services of the three selected tree species, a controlled experiment was launched from January to December in 2020. For each tree species, five trees were planted in the common environment as the controlled group, while the other five trees were under the precipitation-exclusion installation (PEI) as the drought-simulation group. Consisting of several water-proof tents, PEI was adequately large and could completely prevent trees from obtaining rainfalls, which created a precipitation-exclusive environment to simulate an enduring drought event within the whole research period (Fig. 1).Figure 1Schematic diagram of the drought simulation experiment for the three surveyed tree species.Full size imageEnvironmental monitoring systemsClimatic data were sampled every 10 min with a weather station (WP3103 mesoscale automatic weather station, China) located at an unshaded site in the nursery. The data were stored in the logger and copied to our laboratory to produce daily or monthly data. All the climatic variables, including photosynthetically active radiation (PAR, µmol m-2 s-1), wind speed (m s-1), precipitation (mm), and air temperature (°C) were calculated from January to December in 2020.For volumetric soil water content (%; VWC), the HOBO MX2307 system (Onetemp, Adelaide, Australia), placed in a shaded box in the nursery, was applied for all the three tree species from both the controlled and drought-simulation groups. For each individual tree, the sensing probe was inserted horizontally at the depths of 30 cm and located 20 cm in the northern direction from the tree stems. Based on the daily readings, monthly means were calculated from January to December in 2020.Measurement of above-ground growthTo investigate the above-ground growth of the three tree species from both the controlled and drought-simulation groups, their DBH (diameter at breast height, cm), tree height (m), and LAI (leaf area index) were measured at the beginning of each month in 2020. DBH was measured with the help of a caliper (Altraco Inc., Sausalito, California, USA), and their tree heights were measured using a standard tape. The crown analytical instrument CI-110 (Camas, Washington State, USA) was used to capture an accurate image of tree crowns and calculate LAI. Sufficient numbers of points were measured and recorded to describe each tree’s average crown shape. The software FV2200 (LICOR Biosciences, Lincoln, NE) helped compute each tree’s crown width and crown area.Measurement of below-ground growthFine root coring campaigns were launched for all the trees of the three tree species from both the controlled and drought treatment groups every three to four months, i.e., in February, May, September, and December. Although the coring campaign might damage part of the roots, the fine roots obtained each time were a mere portion of the whole root system, not affecting the general development of trees’ underground processes. For every individual tree, two 30-cm soil cores were applied in each direction of north, south, east, and west, of which one was located at 20 cm to the trunk (paracentral roots) and the other one was located at 40 cm (outer roots). In addition, the soil samples were evenly divided into three horizons which were 0–10 cm (shallow layer), 10–20 cm (middle layer), and 20–30 cm (deep layer). Then a sieve with 2-mm mesh size was used to filter all the fine roots. The fine roots were washed carefully to remove the adherent soils and dried in an oven at 65 ℃ for 72 h. Finally, all the samples were weighed using a balance with an accuracy of four decimal places to obtain the dry weight. The fine root biomass at different depths was calculated using the dry weight divided by the cross-sectional area of the auger20.Model’s simulation of ecosystem servicesThe process-based model City-Tree was used to predict the ecosystem services of the three tree species from both the controlled and drought-simulation groups23. The model required the data of tree growth parameters including tree height, DBH, and crown area together with environmental conditions such as edaphic and climatic data24. In this research, cooling, evapotranspiration and CO2 fixation of the three surveyed tree species in the controlled and drought-treatment groups were simulated at the end of 2020.The actual evapotranspiration eta was calculated from the potential evapotranspiration using fetp[t], Tilia’s factors fetp[t], and the reduction factor fred:$${mathrm{et}}_{mathrm{a}}={mathrm{f}}_{mathrm{red}}*{mathrm{f}}_{mathrm{etp}}left[mathrm{t}right]*{mathrm{et}}_{mathrm{p}}$$The process of tree’s evapotranspiration (etp) was calculated on the basis of SVAT algorithm together with Penman formula in the module on water balance as below:$${mathrm{et}}_{mathrm{p}}=left[mathrm{s }/ left(mathrm{s}+upgamma right)right]*left({mathrm{r}}_{mathrm{s}}-{mathrm{r}}_{mathrm{L}}right) /mathrm{ L}+left[1-mathrm{s }/ left(mathrm{s}+upgamma right)right]*{mathrm{e}}_{mathrm{s}}*mathrm{f }left({mathrm{v}}_{mathrm{u}}right)$$with γ: psychrometric constant in hPa K−1; s: the slope of the saturation vapour pressure curve in hPa K−1; rs: short wave radiation balance in W m−2; rL: long-wave radiation balance in W m−2; L: specific evaporation heat in W m−2 mm−1 d; es: saturation deficit in hPa; f (vu): ventilation function with vu being the daily average wind speed in m s−1.Within the module cooling, the energy needed for the transition of water from liquid to gaseous phase was calculated based on the crown area (CA) and the transpiration eta sum:$${mathrm{E}}_{mathrm{A}}= {mathrm{et}}_{mathrm{a}}*mathrm{CA}-left({mathrm{L}}_{mathrm{O}}* -0.00242*mathrm{temp}right) / {mathrm{f}}_{mathrm{con}}$$with EA: energy released by a tree through transpiration (kWh tree-1), LO: energy needed for the transition of the 1 kg of water from the liquid to gaseous phase = 2.498 MJ (kgH2O)-1 and temp = temperature in ℃, fcon: 0.5.The calculation of new assimilation in the module of photosynthesis and respiration was on the basis of the approach of Haxeltine and Prenticem25. The model assumed that 50% of the incoming short-wave radiation is photosynthetic active radiation (PAR). Using the LAI and a light extinction factor of 0.5, the radiation amount of 1 m2 leaf area can be estimated based on an exponential function according to the Lambert–Beer law. This way, the gross assimilation per m2 leaf area as the daily mean of the month can be derived from:$${text{A}} = {text{d}}*{{left[ {left( {{text{J}}_{{text{p}}} + {text{J}}_{{text{r}}} – {text{sqrt}} left( {left( {{text{J}}_{{text{P}}} + {text{J}}_{{text{r}}} } right)^{2} – 4*uptheta *{text{J}}_{{text{p}}} *{text{J}}_{{text{r}}} } right)} right)} right]} mathord{left/ {vphantom {{left[ {left( {{text{J}}_{{text{p}}} + {text{J}}_{{text{r}}} – {text{sqrt}} left( {left( {{text{J}}_{{text{P}}} + {text{J}}_{{text{r}}} } right)^{2} – 4*uptheta *{text{J}}_{{text{p}}} *{text{J}}_{{text{r}}} } right)} right)} right]} {left( {2*uptheta } right)}}} right. kern-0pt} {left( {2*uptheta } right)}}$$with A: gross assimilation [g C m−2 d−1]; d: mean day length of the month [h]; Jp: reaction of photosynthesis on absorbed photosynthetic radiation [g C m−2 h−1]; Jr: rubisco limited rate of photosynthesis [g C m−2 h−1]; θ: form factor = 0.7.Jp was defined as a function of the photosynthetic active radiation PAR in mol m−2 h−1 and the efficiency of carbon fixation per absorbed PAR [g C mol−1].$${text{J}}_{{text{p}}} = {text{c}}_{{text{p}}} {text{*PAR}}$$$${text{c}}_{{text{p}}} = alpha *left( {{text{p}}_{{{text{ci}}}} – {text{r}}} right){ /}left( {{text{p}}_{{{text{ci}}}} – {text{r}}} right)*gamma *{text{m}}_{{{text{co}}_{2} }} *{text{i}}left[ {text{t}} right]$$with α: intrinsic quantum efficiency for CO2 uptake = 0.08; pci: partial pressure of the internal CO2 [Pa]; r: CO2 compensation point [Pa]; ϒ: species dependent adjustment function for tree age; m CO2: molecular mass of C = 12.0 g mol−1; i[t]: influence of temperature on efficiency.Net assimilation AN [g C m−2 d−1] was then derived from the gross assimilation A and the dark respiration Rd by:$${text{A}}_{{text{N}}} = {text{A}} – {text{R}}_{{text{d}}}$$$${text{R}}_{{text{d}}} =upbeta *{text{V}}_{{text{m}}}$$where Vm was calculated as:$${text{V}}_{{text{m}}} = {1 mathord{left/ {vphantom {1 upbeta }} right. kern-0pt} upbeta } * {{{text{c}}_{{text{p}}} } mathord{left/ {vphantom {{{text{c}}_{{text{p}}} } {{text{c}}_{{text{r}}} * {text{PAR}} * left[ {left( {2uptheta – 1} right) * beta * {{text{d}} mathord{left/ {vphantom {{text{d}} {{text{d}}_{max } }}} right. kern-0pt} {{text{d}}_{max } }} – left( {2uptheta *upbeta *{{text{d}} mathord{left/ {vphantom {{text{d}} {{text{d}}_{max } }}} right. kern-0pt} {{text{d}}_{max } }} – {text{c}}_{{text{r}}} } right)*varsigma } right]}}} right. kern-0pt} {{text{c}}_{{text{r}}} * {text{PAR}} * left[ {left( {2theta – 1} right) * beta * {{text{d}} mathord{left/ {vphantom {{text{d}} {{text{d}}_{max } }}} right. kern-0pt} {{text{d}}_{max } }} – left( {2theta *upbeta *{{text{d}} mathord{left/ {vphantom {{text{d}} {{text{d}}_{max } }}} right. kern-0pt} {{text{d}}_{max } }} – {text{c}}_{{text{r}}} } right)*varsigma } right]}}$$By multiplying AN, the number of days and the total leaf area, the entire monthly net assimilation of the tree can be obtained. In this study, we assumed a fixed share of 50% as respiration based on the gross primary production that the resulting net primary production NPP was transformed in the content of fixed carbon by multiplying the value with the carbon conversion factor 0.524.$${mathrm{Carbon}}_{mathrm{fix}}=0.5*mathrm{NPP}$$Statistical analysesThe software package R was used for statistical analysis. To investigate the differences between means, two-sampled t-test and analysis of variance (ANOVA) with Tukey’s HSD (honestly significant difference) test were used. All the cases, the means were reported as significant when P  More

A hippo swims in Colombia’s Magdalena River, near where Pablo Escobar’s compound was located.Credit: Fernando Vergara/AP/Shutterstock

Colombian environment minister Susana Muhamad has triggered fear among researchers that she will protect, rather than reduce, a growing population of invasive hippos that threaten the country’s natural ecosystems and biodiversity. Although she did not directly mention the hippos — a contentious issue in Colombia — Muhamad said during a speech in late January that her ministry would create policies that prioritize animal well-being, including the creation of a new division of animal protection.
Landmark Colombian bird study repeated to right colonial-era wrongs
The hippos escaped from drug-cartel leader Pablo Escobar’s estate after he died in 1993. Left alone, the male and three females that Escobar had illegally imported from a US zoo established themselves in Colombia’s Magdalena River and some small lakes nearby — part of the country’s main watershed. After years of breeding, the ‘cocaine hippos’ have multiplied to about 150 individuals, scientists estimate.Given that the hippos (Hippopotamus amphibius) — considered the largest invasive animal in the world — have no natural predators in Colombia and have been mating at a steady rate, their population could reach 1,500 in 16 years, according to a modelling study published in 20211. “I do not understand what the government is waiting for to act,” says Nataly Castelblanco Martínez, a Colombian conservation biologist at the Autonomous University of Quintana Roo in Chetumal, Mexico, and co-author of the study. “If we don’t do anything, 20 years from now the problem will have no solution.”Researchers have called for a strict management plan that would eventually reduce the wild population to zero, through a combination of culling some animals and capturing others, then relocating them to facilities such as zoos. But the subject of what to do with the hippos has polarized the country, with some enamoured by the animals’ charisma and value as a tourist attraction and others concerned about the threat they pose to the environment and local fishing communities.‘A bit surreal’Several studies and observations suggest how destructive it could be to allow the Colombian hippo population to explode. A 2019 paper2, for example, showed that, compared with lakes without hippos, those where the animals have taken up residence contain more nutrients and organic matter that favour the growth of cyanobacteria — aquatic microbes associated with toxic algal blooms. These blooms can reduce water quality and cause mass fish deaths, affecting local fishing communities.

A sign near Doradal, Colombia, warns passersby of the danger of invasive hippos.Credit: Juancho Torres/Anadolu Agency via Getty

Other scientists have predicted that the hippos could displace endangered species that are native to the Magdalena River, such as the Antillean manatee (Trichechus manatus manatus), by outcompeting them for food and space. They caution that traffic accidents and attacks on people caused by the hippos will become more common. And they warn that wildlife traffickers are already taking advantage of the situation by illegally selling baby hippos — a trend that could intensify.“It’s a bit surreal,” says Jorge Moreno Bernal, a vertebrate palaeontologist at the University of the North in Barranquilla, Colombia. “This is just a taste of what may come.”When Colombian authorities first recognized the speed at which the hippo population was growing, during the 2000s, they acted to reduce their numbers. But in 2009, when photos appeared online after soldiers gunned down Pepe, Escobar’s fugitive male hippo, the outcry from animal-rights activists and others plunged the environment ministry into an “institutional paralysis”, says Sebastián Restrepo Calle, an ecologist at Javeriana University in Bogotá.Researchers say that the hippos don’t belong in Colombia — they are native to sub-Saharan Africa. Simulations run by Castelblanco Martínez and her colleagues suggest that to reduce the population to zero by 2033, about 30 hippos would need to be removed from the wild population per year1. No other course of action, including sterilization or castration, would eradicate them, according to the modelling of various management scenarios, says Castelblanco Martínez.The cost of inactionThe worry now is that, instead of basing decisions on evidence and expertise in conservation, the government is listening to popular opinion, says Restrepo Calle. Neither Muhamad nor representatives of the environment ministry replied to Nature’s requests for comment.
Ancient stone tools suggest early humans dined on hippo
“Why prioritize one species over our own ecosystems?” — especially a species that isn’t native, asks Alejandra Echeverri, a Colombian conservation scientist at Stanford University in California. Along with her colleagues, Echeverri published a study last month showing that Colombia has few policies governing invasive species compared with its overall number of biodiversity policies3.Animals-rights advocates, meanwhile, argue that they aren’t ignoring environmental concerns. Luis Domingo Gómez Maldonado, an animal-rights activist and specialist in animal law at Saint Thomas University in Bogotá, says “It’s not about saving the hippos on a whim,” but rather about solving the issue while also giving the hippos justice. “My indisputable position is: let’s save as many individuals as possible, let’s do it ethically.”Researchers, too, say they have the animals’ best interests at heart. “Even if [advocates] don’t see it, we care about the hippos,” Castelblanco Martínez says. “The more time that passes, the more hippos will either have to be culled, castrated or captured.”The question is whether environmental authorities will act swiftly to draft and enforce a management plan that is both ethical and effective. Should they sit on the issue for too long, Castelblanco Martínez warns, rural communities that are most affected by the hippos might take matters into their own hands.If the government doesn’t cull them, she says, people will use shotguns to do it. More

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Terraces are a land type that is defined by its shape. They have a distinct morphological structure and edge features that distinguish them from other land types. In this study, we define terraces as agricultural land with strip or wavy sections built on slopes greater than 2° along the contour direction. Figure 1 depicts Google Maps satellite images of terraces in the Loess Plateau region. Terraces can be distinguished from other features in remote sensing images based on their colour, morphology, texture, and structure. Terraces can be distinguished from construction land, water, glaciers, and deserts by their colours. Figure 1b–d shows terraces that are primarily green and yellow. Furthermore, terraces are generally distributed along the contour direction, and can therefore be identified based on their morphology. Terraced field ridges curve downward and resemble strips in Fig. 1b,d or circles or ovals in Fig. 1c rather than a neat grid-like distribution. These features differ in morphology from the flat land shown in Fig. 1h. Based on texture and structure, the field area of terraces can be identified based on their strong edge features, as shown in Fig. 1b–d. The edges of terraces have dark stripes caused by oblique illumination received from the sun, and the field ridge of terraces often intercepts part of the sunlight due to their height. Sloping cultivated land, as shown in Fig. 1g, has no evident terraced wall. The outline of sloping cultivated land in the high-resolution image is curved, with no prominent edge features. These findings are critical differences distinguishing terraces and sloping land in high-resolution images.Fig. 1The spatial location of the Loess Plateau and images of various types of cultivated land. (a) The spatial location of the Loess Plateau and Spatial distribution of various cultivated land types images, (b) wide strip-mounted terraces in Longxi, (c) circular wide terraces in central Yulin, (d) high resolution image of Zhuanglang County in July 2019, (e) Zhuanglang County in February 2020, (f) narrow terraces in Shangbao, Chongyi, Jiangxi Province, (g) sloping cropland in Zhenjiang Town, Laibin, Guangxi, and (h) horizontal cropland in the North China Plain.Full size imageDeep learning-based terrace extraction modelThe DLTEM is a terrace extraction model that uses deep learning algorithms and other supplementary information. Initially, a preliminary terrace distribution map was obtained using a deep learning algorithm. It was then combined with the spectral and digital elevation model (DEM) elevation information to fine-tune the results. The final spatial distribution of the terraces was produced by manual correction (Fig. 2). Traditional land classification models or methods typically superimpose spectral, elevation, and morphological texture information from remote sensing images together for training, such as random forest, which is easily ignored in training since morphological texture information accounts for a relatively small amount of the total information. This leads to significant errors while identifying land classes with textural characteristics. In contrast, the DLTEM focuses on morphological texture information from remote sensing images and classifies it into land classes, followed by auxiliary correction through additional information. Thus, this method is more suitable to extract terraces enriched with texture structure information.Fig. 2Flow chart of the deep learning-based terrace extraction model.Full size imageThe UNet++ network is a classic deep learning algorithm that is uniquely unrivaled in extracting colour, morphology, texture, and structure features from images and applying them for classification. In comparison with other Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) classification models (e.g., Fully Convolutional Networks (FCN)), it has high classification accuracy, fast computation speed, strong robustness, and provides variable importance metrics. Therefore, in this study, the UNet++ network was adopted as the network framework for deep learning; the primary data source used was high-resolution satellite imagery from 2019. DEM (SRTM v4.1) data were used to obtain the elevation information and GlobeLand30 data were used to obtain the spectral information. The results were corrected to construct the final map of the distribution of terraces in the Loess Plateau.Study areaThe Loess Plateau, one of China’s four major plateaus, is located in northern central China (34°–40° N and 103°–114° E) (Fig. 1). It is covered by a thick loess layer that ranges in thickness from 50 to 80 m, and is the world’s largest loess deposition area, covering 648,700 km2. The altitude of the Loess Plateau ranges from 800 to 3,000 m, its average annual temperature is 6–14 °C, and its average annual precipitation is 200–700 mm. Since ancient times, the Loess Plateau has been used for agriculture because of its fine grains, fluffy soil texture, and rich soluble mineral nutrients, all of which are conducive to crop cultivation. However, long-term unsustainable land use caused the degradation of the vegetation cover in the Loess Plateau. Moreover, the land is degrading due to considerable nutrient loss caused by long-term water erosion in conjunction with natural conditions, such as arid climate, loose soil, concentrated and heavy rainfall. The fragmented ground in the region has made it susceptible to soil erosion. It has also become the primary source of Yellow River sediment as a result of the massive flow of eroded sediment into the Yellow River, posing a serious threat to the economic and social development of the lower Yellow River basin.Terracing is one of the main measures used to enhance crop yield and conserve soil and water in the region. Since the 1980s, the Chinese government has implemented many large-scale slope-to-terrace projects in the Loess Plateau. Especially in recent years, the outline of the comprehensive management plan for the Loess Plateau area (2010–2030) has been promulgated with a planned area of 2.608 million hectares for slope to terrace conversion, making it the core area of slope to terrace conversion projects in the country.Data preparationAlthough high-resolution satellite images can be an important data source for the spatial distribution of terraces on the Loess Plateau, they are not ideal for terraces classification. On the one hand, a higher resolution image requires more storage space. On the other hand, it reduces the efficiency, prolongs the interpretation time, and increases the noise in the image, affecting the interpretation accuracy. Most of the terraces on the Loess Plateau are wider than 7 m (Fig. 1b–d). These are wide terraces in comparison with the narrow terraces of southern China (Fig. 1f), which are less than 2 m wide. Furthermore, it is also easy to mistake the fish-scale pits constructed for soil and water conservation for terraces because of their similarity in form. However, as the width of their field surface is less than 1.5 m, remote sensing images with a 2 m resolution can effectively prevent the false extraction of such features. Based on the actual situation of this study area, we chose a high-resolution image with a spatial resolution of 1.89 m from Google Maps 16 level as the data source. The colour, texture, and morphological features of terraces in the images show seasonal variations. In autumn and winter, the weather is dry, and the vegetation is less shaded in the Loess Plateau. During this time, even the edge features become more visible and easier to identify. As a result, we selected images from October 2018 to February 2019 whenever possible (Fig. 1c,d).Deep learning network selectionLand classification is the extraction of land types from remote sensing images using image segmentation techniques. As the key technology of image segmentation, the Fully Convolutional Network (FCN) classifies images at the pixel level. FCN follows the network structure pattern of encoding and decoding, which adopts AlexNet as the encoder of the network and then employs transposed convolution to up-sample the feature map output from the final convolutional layer of the encoder to the resolution of the input image to achieve pixel-level image segmentation. However, due to the large error in image pixel boundary localization, Ronneberger et al.29 improved the FCN structure in 2015 by expanding the capacity of the network decoder by adding a contracting path to the encoding and decoding modules to achieve more accurate pixel boundary localisation29. The U-Net network is commonly used in medical image processing because it requires a small number of training samples and is effective in classifying objects with a fixed structure and limited semantic information. This network is comparable to natural image semantic segmentation such as Deeplab v3+, which has a smaller number of model parameters and the same effect.Since the texture and morphological features of terraces and human organs have certain similarities, they are primarily manifested by simple semantic information contained within the terrace images themselves. Thus, high-level semantic information and low-level features of such images become more important. However, high-resolution images are more complicated and variable than medical image patterns, and errors in terrace extraction edge identification using the U-Net network, such as boundary segmentation of terraces and flatlands, still occur. To fully utilize the semantic information of the network, we adopted a nested U-Net architecture, namely the UNet++ network proposed by Zhou et al.28. The network integrates long-connected and short-connected architectures to capture features at different levels by adding a shallower U-Net structure and integrates them via feature superposition to make the scale difference of feature maps smaller when fused to enhance the correct rate of image segmentation edges. However, because the U-Net++ network increases the number of model parameters, this study adopted the sparse matrix approach to accelerate model training and decrease the number of parameters.Data pre-processingData pre-processing is a prerequisite for UNet++ network training, that is, valid input according to the standard format annotation before training can be performed. Since the UNet++ network proposed by Zhou et al.28. is primarily used for medical images, which have characteristics such as fixed image structure, no spatial information, and less pattern variation, labelling medical images is comparatively easier using this method. In contrast, high-resolution remote sensing images have a large number of rasters, many pattern changes, irregular image structure, and spatial information. Therefore, determining how to better annotate high-resolution remote sensing images and reduce the annotation workload becomes critical. First, we vectorized the training sample area and generated the terrace vector dataset using ArcGIS with a high-resolution remote sensing image as the primitive map. Second, we converted the terrace vector dataset into raster data. The information of the raster had to be identical to that of the primitive map, including the size of the raster, its processing range, and its coordinate system. The output was converted to TIFF format to complete the image annotation. Since the raster size input to UNet++ network training is a fixed size, it is much smaller than the original image. To simplify the process of inputting the original image and its annotation information, we added an image import module to DLTEM, which was a sliding window of 400*400, and read the image automatically by setting the corresponding judgement conditions. Finally, the entire high-resolution image was processed automatically into the model in accordance with the established rules for training.The goal of the data enhancement was to improve the universality and robustness of the UNet++ network training results. As mentioned above, the high-resolution images taken simultaneously often included clouds or other anomalies in some areas, as the images were stitched together using multiple sources of data fusion. This can easily form evident stitching traces (Fig. 1c,d) due to the different shooting times and image quality of various data sources, i.e., brightness, saturation, and colour contrast of the images. Thus, the model trained on the original image data has strong limitations, and in many scenes, there are notable matrix-type misclassification regions due to image differences, making extraction work challenging. Therefore, in this study, we first adjusted the brightness, grayscale, and contrast of the training data after input to enhance its colour feature recognition ability. We then altered the scaling of the image, and rotated and transformed the training image from 0° to 360° to enhance morphological feature recognition and the accuracy of the training network in terrace extraction.Parameter settingThe network parameter setting is the most critical hyperparameter for UNet++ network training. They are mainly divided into input image size, batch size, learning rate, number of iterations, objective function, gradient descent strategy, momentum, decay rate, and activation function. Among them, we set the image size to 400*400 pixels based on the actual situation of the terraced area, where the UNet++ network has four scaling times, and the image size must be a multiple of 16. The batch size primarily affects the convergence of the model. If the batch limit is set to one, the model is easily affected by the random perturbation phenomenon and cannot converge to find the optimal solution. Since the batch size is determined by the size of the video memory, the value of the batch is limited by equipment constraints. The model in this study used a 2080Ti video card with 11 GB of video memory, and the batch was set to 8. The learning rate, gradient descent strategy, and objective function play a role in whether the network can find the best classification model better and faster. The learning rate was set to 0.001 for the first 500 generations, with the goal of achieving fast convergence to the target region. The learning rate was then set to 0.0001 for 500–1,000 generations, and the model was fine-tuned by choosing a smaller learning rate to find the model with the highest classification accuracy. Adam was chosen for the gradient descent strategy. The momentum and adaptive learning rate were used to increase the convergence rate. The cross-entropy classification loss function was chosen as the objective function to improve the differentiation between terraced and non-terraced areas. Momentum, decay rate, and activation function were all adopted from the previous default settings of the UNet++ network.Data correctionIn this study, we primarily used high-resolution images from Google Earth as the data source to extract the distribution of terraces on the Loess Plateau. Because this image source only contains a large amount of texture structure information and no vegetation information, it is easy to misjudge and misclassify features with the same morphological structure and edge features, such as permanent snow and ice, water bodies, bare land, and artificial surfaces. Vegetation information was generally processed based on waveband data from multispectral/hyperspectral images. It requires topographic correction, atmospheric correction, radiometric calibration, de-clouding, and other operational processes, which are extremely sophisticated30.GlobeLand30 is a 30 m spatial resolution global surface coverage dataset developed by the National Geomatics Center of China. The most recent GlobeLand30 dataset (v2020) has been updated with data sources from 2017 to the present. Its extensive data sources enable effective reduction of the impacts of cloud cover, with an overall accuracy of 85.72%. The classification accuracy of permanent snow and ice, water bodies, bare land, and artificial surfaces of this dataset is as high as 75.79%, 84.70%, 81.76%, and 86.70%, respectively. Since the update time of v2020 data is similar to that of high-resolution images, it can be used as correction data for vegetation information31.Since the training image data are two-dimensional planar data with no elevation or slope information (Fig. 1g), certain flat fields with visible field bumps are easily misclassified as terraces. The Space Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM v4.1) DEM has a spatial resolution of 30 m and ranges from 60° N to 56° S, completely covering the Loess Plateau32,33. In this study, these data were treated as terrain correction data. The amendment standard corrects the areas that have been extracted as terraces below 2° to non-terraced areas according to the requirements of the Ministry of Natural Resources of China.The spatial resolution of our extracted terraces is 1.89 m, whereas the spatial resolution of GlobeLand30 and DEM as correction data sources is 30 m, which is difficult to meet the requirements of data processing. Hence, we up-sample the two correction data sources, and then used multi-source data fusion. First, we extracted and up-sampled the terraced areas of glaciers, rivers, and deserts from GlobeLand30 to a spatial resolution of 1.89 m. Secondly, we up-sampled the DEM to 1.89 m using spatial interpolation for its raster centre as the true value of the region and performed a slope calculation for the up-sampled DEM. Further, the spatial distribution maps of glaciers, rivers, deserts, and slope maps of the Loess Plateau with the same resolution as the spatial distribution maps of terraces were available. Finally, we superimposed these images, used the terrace range in the TDMLP as a mask, and assessed the pixels in the mask area one by one. If a pixel belonged to permanent snow and ice, a water body, bare land, or an artificial surface, or had a slope less than 2°, it was modified to the background value. Otherwise, the original value was retained.We made artificial corrections to the data based on the extracted results for the arid areas of the Loess Plateau as well as for the flatter basins, given that these areas do not feature terraces.Training and validation dataFor supervised classification, the selection of sample areas and sample features is crucial. The focus and core of any land classification work is representative and effective training sample selection. To obtain a better sample area selection, we considered the selection of sample areas from three perspectives, i.e., colour texture features, topographic features, and spatial distance of the training samples. First, the terraces in this study are in agricultural land, including cultivated land, woodland, grassland, and other types of land; thus, different types of land will present different texture details. At the same time, high-resolution images from Google Earth are mosaicked. Because of the different acquisition times, the same region and land type will have visible colour differences and stitching traces, which is more common in the Loess Plateau region. Therefore, these factors should be considered in the selection of training samples as much as possible to improve the generability of the model and the correct rate of its extraction. Second, the state of the terraces varies according to topographic features. Among them, gradient, direction, altitude, and climate are the most significant factors. Terraces can be categorised as shallow-slope or steep-slope terraces. Based on slope aspect, altitude, and climate characteristics, they can also be categorised as either easy to identify or hard to identify. Thus, the sample should be inclusive of these types of terraces. According to the first law of geography, terraces in different spatial locations have different morphologies. Therefore, the spatial location of the samples should also be at a certain distance.In summary, we selected one county in each region based on the geomorphic zoning characteristics of the Loess Plateau. In addition, we added one more in the area where the density of terraces may be higher. Finally, we selected the whole area of seven counties (Fig. 3) as the training sample area distribution, covering 2.18% of the overall Loess Plateau area. The colour morphological features, topographic features, spatial location, and imaging quality of terrace images in these regions are highly representative. This method was unique from other classification methods. Most of the traditional methods are based on the single-pixel information of feature layers such as random forests, which tend to ignore the neighbouring information around the point, and thus are subject to misclassification and under classification for land types with outstanding texture information. In our study, we adopted the visual interpretation of the whole domain, which can cover the neighbourhood information of each pixel point more comprehensively. To ensure the uniformity and correctness of visual interpretation, the terraces in the training area were visually interpreted by seven interpreters after uniform professional training. For the disputed and uncertain areas, the seven interpreters carried out interactive interpretation and scoring according to the interpretation results. Finally, two other interpretation experts made the final review and corrections. The interpretation results of the training area were re-examined and revised based on the results of the later interpretations.Fig. 3Distribution of training sample areas and validation sites in terraces on the Loess Plateau.Full size imageTo better assess and compare the validity and correctness of the terraced agricultural area datasets on the Loess Plateau in quantitatively, the validation dataset was divided into two parts: a per-pixel point-based validation set and a field validation dataset of terraces with location information. The extracted datasets were comprehensively evaluated in terms of both pixel scale and field validation.We constructed a single-pixel validation point that evaluates the TDMLP. We applied the Icosahedral Snyder Equal Area Discrete Global Grid created by ArcGIS. Based on this strategy, the study area was partitioned into 972 regions (Fig. 3). To better validate the terrace classification results (excluding non-terrace classes), we placed more validation points within the grid where the terrace distribution is more concentrated. First, we calculated the proportion of terraces in each hexagonal grid to the total area of the hexagonal grid. Second, we separated the terraces into four levels according to the proportion of terraces to the whole grid area as 0–20%, 20–50%, 50–80%, and 80–100% and the number of validation points was 10, 20, 40, and 50, respectively.Since the proportion of the extracted terraced area to the total area was only 14%, direct random point deployment would have led to fewer terraced validation sets and thus would have affected the final data evaluation. Therefore, in the deployment strategy, we ensured that the validation points distributed in the extracted terraces in each grid account for at least one-fifth of the total number of validation points, but for the grid with a smaller proportion of terraces or even 0, this practice was meaningless. Hence, we stipulated that in the grid with a proportion of terraces ≤1%, direct random scattering was to be performed. The final scattered verification points in the terraced and non-terraced areas were 5,194 and 6,226, respectively, with a ratio close to 1:1 for easy verification. The spatial distribution is shown in Fig. 3.We validated the spatial distribution map of terraces on the Loess Plateau from 14 April 2021 to 1 May 2021 and constructed a field validation dataset of terraces with location information. Considering the longitudinal, latitudinal, and vertical heterogeneities of the Loess Plateau, the verification route was divided into two sections, north to south and east to west, to more comprehensively cover all regions of the Loess Plateau. The verification route started at Hohhot in the northeast of the Loess Plateau. It passed through the Datong Basin, followed the Yellow River to the south and the Weihe Plain, and then travelled westward through Mount Liupan to the westernmost part of the Loess Plateau. The route was through 54 counties/districts in 16 cities and six provinces on the Loess Plateau, with a total distance of 3,680 km, covering 15.8% of the counties on the Loess Plateau (total of 341 counties). We also surveyed and sampled the verification points approximately every 5 km along the route and collected data from a total of 815 sample points, covering various types of terraces on the Loess Plateau. The results are shown in Fig. 3. More