Spatio-temporal changes in urban green space in 107 Chinese cities (1990-2019): The role of economic drivers and policy

The rapid expansion of urbanization has promoted the prosperity of the economy and society but has also caused rural ecological problems. This study takes the Dujiangyan Irrigation District as an example, to construct ecological and recreation patterns, and it breaks through the pattern construction mode of using a single ecological factor that has been used in previous studies. We analyzed the impact of landscape connectivity and area thresholds at different scales on the selection of source areas, and integrated urban construction and human disturbance factors into resistance surface construction. Finally, a comprehensive landscape network combining “ecology and recreation” was determined through the minimum cumulative resistance model. Multiscale landscape connectivity analysis and area threshold setting greatly promoted the results of source identification. After optimization, we identified four ecological corridors and twenty-seven recreational corridors, and the regional landscape security pattern was significantly improved compared with the previous upper planning content. Therefore, this study provides a reference for regional long-term planning and has reference significance for the spatial protection and utilization of rapidly urbanizing areas.

/pdf/construction-of-ecological-and-recreation-patterns-in-rural-3dqs1b51.pdf

Construction of Ecological and Recreation Patterns in Rural Landscape Space: A Case Study of the Dujiangyan Irrigation District in Chengdu, China

The ecosystem in the Northeast Forest Belt (NFB) can provide various ecosystem services, such as soil conservation, habitat provision, water conservation, and so on. It is essential for maintaining the ecological environment in Northeast China and the entire country. In the face of increasingly severe environmental problems, the comprehensive and accurate evaluation of ecosystem conditions and their changes is significant for scientific and reasonable recovery and protection measures. In this study, the NFB was taken as the research area. The spatio-temporal changes in ecological quality from 2005 to 2015 and the main driving factors behind them were analyzed by constructing the comprehensive ecosystem evaluation index. The results showed that: The landscape types of the NFB were mainly forest, cropland, and grassland. And the better ecological environment of the NFB was mainly distributed in the south of Changbai Mountains (CBM), the middle of Lesser Khingan Mountains (LKM), and the northwest of Greater Khingan Mountains (GKM). In contrast, the northeast of CBM, the southwest of LKM, and the edge of southern GKM were relatively poor. During 2005–2015, the ecosystem in the NFB was in a relatively good state as a whole, showing a steady-to-good development trend. However, more attention needed to be paid to some areas where degradation still existed. Land use/cover, climate (annual average rainfall, etc.), and human disturbance were potential factors affecting ecosystem evolution in the NFB. This study aims to provide an effective scientific basis and policy reference for the environmental protection and construction of the NFB.

/pdf/ecosystem-and-driving-force-evaluation-of-northeast-forest-2nwwdix3.pdf

Ecosystem and Driving Force Evaluation of Northeast Forest Belt

With advancements in urbanization, natural lands are constantly being encroached upon by artificial impervious surfaces, leading to serious ecosystem damage. Calls for Green Infrastructure to address urban environmental issues and resource reallocation are growing. How to optimize Green Infrastructure networks are becoming increasingly important under rapid urbanization. In this study, we used the main city zone in Hangzhou as the study area, and we extracted 2000, 2010 and 2020 land-use data. We used morphological spatial pattern analysis to identify Green Infrastructure landscape types and further extract Green Infrastructure elements. We identified the spatial priority of Green Infrastructure network elements through landscape connectivity evaluation according to ecological importance and development vulnerability. After the construction of a Green Infrastructure network, we analyzed its spatio-temporal characteristics to determine the Green Infrastructure network’s spatial priority. Through spatial prioritization, the gradual construction and optimization of Green Infrastructure networks will help to improve urban green spaces in stages. Smartly coordinating urban growth and ecological protection based on Green Infrastructure spatial prioritization may help improve urban living environments and enhance sustainable urban development capabilities. In conclusion, sources dominate corridors and codes are changing. If sources are fragmented, the integration degree decreases and the first-level source advantage is weakened. The corridor morphology continuously develops, and the corridor structure stabilizes. Second-level corridors gradually replace third-level corridors to guide Green Infrastructure network structure development. Codes present a scatter distribution and tend to average, closely following corridor change.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/11/6/901/pdf?version=1655887889

Changes and Characteristics of Green Infrastructure Network Based on Spatio-Temporal Priority

Spatiotemporal distribution and driving factors of regional green spaces during rapid urbanization in Nanjing metropolitan area, China

The purpose of this study is to reveal the spatial-temporal change and driving factors of green space in coastal cities of southeast China over the past 20 years. A supervised classification method combining support vector machines (SVMs) and visual interpretation was used to extract the green space from Landsat TM/OLI imageries from 2000–2020. The landscape pattern index was used to calculate geospatial information of green space and analyze their spatial-temporal changes. The hierarchical partitioning analysis was then used to determine the influences of anthropogenic and geographic environmental factors on the spatial-temporal changes in green space. The results indicated that the total area of green space remained constant over the past 20 years in coastal cities of southeast China (1% reduction). The spatial change of green space mainly occurred in the area near the ocean and the southern region. 41.37% of forest land was transferred from cultivated land, while 44.56%, 41.83%, 43.20%, 46.31%, 41.98% and 40.20% of shrub land, sparse woodland, other woodland, high-coverage grassland, moderate-coverage grassland and low-coverage grassland were transferred from forest land. The number of patches, patch density, edge density, landscape shape index and Shannon’s diversity index increased from 2000–2015, and then decreased to the minimum in 2020, while largest patch index continued to decline from 2000–2020. The contribution of anthropogenic factors (0.53–0.61) on the spatial-temporal changes of green space continually increased over the past 20 years, which was also higher than geographical environment factors (0.39–0.41). Our study provides a new perspective to distinguish the impact of anthropogenic activities and geographical environmental factors on the change of green space area, thereby providing a theoretical support for the construction and ecological management of green space.

https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/5/537/pdf

Huayan Weng

Papers

Spatial-Temporal Changes and Driving Force Analysis of Green Space in Coastal Cities of Southeast China over the Past 20 Years