Land Use Transformation Based on Production-Living-Ecological Space and Associated Eco-Environment Effects: Evidence from the Upper Reaches of the Yangtze River, China

Abstract

Abstract The rapid process of urbanization and industrialization has intensified the competition among various stakeholders for land resources, leading to increasingly fierce mutual conversion between production, living and ecological land, thus causing fluctuations in regional ecological environmental quality. This study focuses on the upper reaches of the Yangtze River (URYR), land use data were obtained by interpreting five remotely-sensed images taken in 1980, 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020. Using methods such as transfer matrix, ecological environmental quality index, geographic detector etc., the study conducts quantitative analysis on land use transformation, eco-environmental effects, and influencing factors in the URYR. The results show that from 1980 to 2020, the land use transformation is manifested as an increase in living land and a decrease in production and ecological land. The primary type of land use space evolution is the transformation between production and ecological land, and the overall eco-environment quality has declined. The high-value areas are mostly concentrated in the southwest and east, while low-value aggregation areas are formed in the central and western parts. Natural environment factors serve as the base of eco-environment quality in the URYR. The influence factors from strong to weak are topographic relief, slope, net primary productivity (NPP), mean annual temperature, altitude, land use intensity, economic density, annual average precipitation, road network density, population density and land use diversity. The research findings presented in this paper can serve as a valuable reference for the fields of environmental conservation and territorial spatial planning.