Hillside urban expansion exacerbates nature and semi-nature habitat landscape fragmentation in China

Abstract

ABSTRACT Hillside urban expansion (HUE) force nature and semi-nature habitats (referred as nature habitats) to migrate to higher slope areas, potentially resulting in modifications to the landscapes of these habitats, and affect biodiversity and human well-being. To date, few studies have considered the implications of HUE on nature habitat landscapes across different scales. Thus, a spatial identification framework was developed for HUE through the utilization of multisource data. Landscape metrics and spatial econometric models were employed to quantify and assess the impacts of HUE on nature habitat landscapes in China at the city, county, and grid scales, respectively. Results reveal that HUE accounted for 43.25% of urban expansion in China from 2000 to 2020. At the city scale, low HUE was found to have the most significant impact on nature habitat landscape fragmentation. Medium HUE and heavy HUE had more impact of specific landscape metrics with smaller areas at detailed spatial resolutions, and medium HUE have the more considerable impact and surpassed that of low HUE and heavy HUE. HUE exhibited a more pronounced impact on nature habitat landscape fragmentation in regions with larger city sizes and population densities, as well as lower topographic relief and elevations.