Evaluation of Ecological Environment Effect of Villages Land Use and Cover Change: A Case Study of Some Villages in Yudian Town, Guangshui City, Hubei Province

Wei Ren,Xuesong Zhang,Yebo Shi

doi:10.3390/land10030251

Abstract

Rapid economic development has a significant negative impact on the rural ecological environment. Evaluating the ecological environmental effect of land use and its change trend at the village scale has important practical significance for maintaining ecological functions and ensuring ecological safety. Taking a typical village in Yudian Town as an example, we applied a land-use ecological environment effect evaluation and the CA-Markov change trend prediction model and constructed an index of ecological environmental effect status. Based on the land use, resource environment, and social economic data from 2014 and 2019, we evaluated the ecological environmental effects of land use in each village, simulated the land-use change in each village in two different scenarios, i.e., the developmental orientation (DO) and ecological orientation (EO), in 2030, and analyzed the corresponding change trend of the land-use effect. The ecological environmental effect of land use showed obvious characteristic differentiation in villages with different development levels. For example, villages with poor natural geographic background conditions and slower economic development had a good level of ecological environmental effect, whereas villages with better resource and environmental endowments but faster economic development had lower levels of ecological environmental effect. Village land-use management methods have had a certain effect on improving ecological security, but the effect has been slow. In conclusion, the research results portray the relationship between rural land use and ecological environmental effects in low hilly areas in northern Hubei at a small scale and have reference value for land resource allocation and spatial pattern optimization in similar regions.

Highlights

Land use and cover change (LUCC) is the material basis, energy source, space carrier, and constituent element of ecological civilization construction, and supports the development of all walks in life, having an overall, strategic and fundamental position in the modernization drive
By summarizing the evaluation results of the ecological environmental effect of land use in each village from 2014 to 2019, it was found that different development models presented differentiated ecological environmental effects: 1. Village agglomeration type: Due to the weakening of the village spatial organization and chaotic housing construction, the population, land, industry, and functions were reorganized under the framework of township integration
The land utilization rate was greatly increased, thereby alleviating the negative impact of the economic effect status index caused by land problems

Summary

Introduction

Land use and cover change (LUCC) is the material basis, energy source, space carrier, and constituent element of ecological civilization construction, and supports the development of all walks in life, having an overall, strategic and fundamental position in the modernization drive. Since the 1990s, resource, environment, and population issues have become increasingly prominent, and land use and cover change research has become the frontier of global change research [1,2]. Land use refers to the purposeful development and utilization of land resources by humans, and land cover refers to the natural or man-made coverage of the surface. After entering the 21st century, with the direction of ecological environmental change research and the rapid development of rural areas, land use and cover change in villages has become the core theme of current global rural ecological environmental change research [8]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion