Assessment of the Impact of Land Use Change on Spatial Differentiation of Landscape and Ecosystem Service Values in the Case of Study the Pearl River Delta in China

Abstract

Industrialization and urbanization have led to continuous urban development. The rapid change in land-use type and extent has a significant impact on the capacity of ecosystem services. Changes in the landscape pattern of roads, rivers, railway stations, and expressway entrances and exits have evident geographical proximity effects. We used landscape pattern indices and ecosystem service value (ESV) to evaluate the landscape pattern and ESV spatial differentiation of the Pearl River Delta region and its typical transportation infrastructure and rivers in 1990, 2000, and 2017. The results show that rapid urbanization and industrialization have led to changes in urban land use along the Pearl River Estuary. Urban land changes on the east bank of the Pearl River are greater than urban land changes on the west bank of the Pearl River; the landscape diversity of the Pearl River Delta has increased, the connectivity of the landscape has decreased, and the degree of fragmentation has increased. Second, the city size of the Pearl River Delta was negatively correlated with the ESVs. The ESVs in the core areas of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration were smaller than those in the fringe areas. With the gradient change in urban land use, ESVs showed a growing trend from the city center to the surrounding areas. The key areas for ecological protection and restoration should be central urban areas and suburbs. Third, the siphoning effect of the buffer zones of railway stations and expressway entrances and exits was very strong and drove the development and utilization of the surrounding land. As the degree of land development in the buffer zone decreased, the ESVs increased. Fourth, different grades of roads in the Pearl River Delta had different impacts on the regional landscape and ESVs. County roads had a greater interference effect than expressways, national roads, and provincial roads, and the riverside plains of the Pearl River Delta have a large development space, low urban development costs, and multiple land-use activities that have profoundly changed the landscape of the river buffer zone.