Abstract
Ecological land with considerable ecological value can be regarded as an important indicator in guaranteeing ecosystem function and sustainable development. Generally, the urbanization process has been considered to be the primary factor affecting ecological land use. However, the influence of agricultural development, particularly in a typical farming area, has rarely been studied. In this paper, we present a method to assess the ecological risk of ecological land (ELER) in a black soil area in northeastern China. Furthermore, the underlying factors were detected using the geographically weighted regression model, which took into account conditions of natural elements, the urbanization process, and grain production conditions. The results indicate that ecological land experienced remarkable changes with an evident loss and decline from 1996–2015. The ELER progressively increased in the concentrated farming area and the western agro-pastoral ecotone, and the ecological land in the eastern forest area was always at a high risk level. According to the regression coefficients, the relationships between influence factors and ELER could be better explained by the variables of elevation, slope, proportion of rural residential area, and ratio of cultivated land area to residential area. To summarize, agricultural occupation and urban expansion were verified as the two main causes of ecological land loss, as well as elevated risks. In light of the current situation, measures such as policy adjustment and ecological restoration should be taken to avoid risk and optimize land use.
Highlights
Multiple impacts of anthropogenic activities and natural succession have triggered drastic land use and global environmental changes over the centuries, which inevitably gave rise to various conflicts between economic growth and sustainable development [1,2,3,4]
Construction land that was concentrated in the main urban area and the administrative center of each junior district expressed an evident expanding tendency that echoed the rapid urbanization in recent years
This paper proposes a method for evaluating the variations in landscape ecological risks of ecological land, as well as evaluating the possible impacting factors by quantitatively analyzing the basic natural elements, urbanization indicators, and grain production conditions
Summary
Multiple impacts of anthropogenic activities and natural succession have triggered drastic land use and global environmental changes over the centuries, which inevitably gave rise to various conflicts between economic growth and sustainable development [1,2,3,4]. Urbanization and its accompanying landscape pattern changes, physical and chemical pollution, and irresponsible resource utilization have been considered as the key factors leading to the increase of ecological risk [10,11,12]. It became increasingly important for researchers and policy makers to clarity the interactions between the ecosystem and social system in maintaining regional ecological security. Islam et al analyzed the hazardous elements from different land-use urban soils in Bangladesh, and the results showed that metals were at high potential risk in that country, due to anthropogenic and geogenic factors [11]. The demand of economic growth has still taken precedence over ecological protection in many regions, and the lack of coordination between different management departments has made ecological protection measures difficult to execute [20]
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