Landscape Pattern Evolution and Its Response to Human Disturbance in a Newly Metropolitan Area: A Case Study in Jin-Yi Metropolitan Area

Tao Wu,Xuefeng Xie,Peipei Zha,Guojun Jiang,Jianzhen Zhang,Mengjie Yu,Qinglong You

doi:10.3390/land10080767

Tao Wu, Xuefeng Xie + Show 5 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/land10080767

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Abstract

The impact of human interference on the ecological environment has attracted a significant amount of attention. In this study, hemeroby index (HI) was constructed to quantify the degree of human disturbance, and the relationship between HI and landscape pattern index was explored in a newly metropolitan area. The main objectives of this study were to analyze the temporal and spatial characteristics of landscape pattern and human disturbance in the process of urbanization of county-level cities in China, and to explore the relationship between the landscape pattern index and human disturbance under different disturbance intensity. The conclusions showed that: (1) the degree of human interference in the new area is on the rise, with a slow increase from 1980 to 2010, but since 2010, human interference has increased significantly. The diffusion of human disturbance intensity has obvious spatial directivity, spreading from east to west. (2) The impact of human activities on landscape pattern is shown as increasing fragmentation and increasing number of landscape types. With the enhancement of human activities, the heterogeneity and fragmentation of landscape types in the region reach their highest points. With the continuous increase of human activities, on a certain scale, the landscape types will gradually tend to be the same, and the same type of landscape patches will become one piece and tend to be integrated. This phenomenon is particularly obvious at the patch type level. (3) There is an inflection point value between human disturbance and landscape pattern index in landscape or patch type. On both sides of the inflection point value, the landscape pattern parameters and human disturbance have obvious opposite trends. (4) In the low interference range (1 ≤ HI < 4), with the increase of human interference, more heterogeneous structures (shown in the increase of SHDI) are brought to the landscape, there is more landscape fragmentation (shown in the decrease of LPI, CONTRACT, and AI), and the patch shape and landscape structure tend to be complex (shown in the increase of LSI, SQP, ED, and other indexes); in the high interference range (4 ≤ HI ≤ 7), due to human intervention, the increase of LPI, contract, and AI indicates that intense human activities turn the landscape into a broken and scattered structure and tend to be consistent and homogeneous. LSI, SQP, and ED were negatively correlated with HI at this stage, indicating that with the enhancement of human activities, the complexity of landscape shape decreased.

Highlights

The Anthropocene epoch marks a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and nature [1]
The overall hemeroby index (HI) in the study area is on the rise (Figure 3)
During 1980–2016, the area of evaluation units of degree of hemeroby hemeroby changed significantly, which mainly showed that the area of β-Euhemerobic changed significantly, which mainly showed that the area of β-Euhemerobic and α-Euand α-Euhemerobic (4 ≤ HI < 5) decreased year by year, and the area of Polyhemerobic hemerobic (4 ≤ HI < 5) decreased year by year, and the area of Polyhemerobic and Meand Metahemerobic (HI ≥ 5) increased gradually, but the total area of the two experienced tahemerobic (HI ≥ 5) increased gradually, but the total area of the two experienced an an overall upward trend

Summary

Introduction

The Anthropocene epoch marks a fundamental change in the relationship between humans and nature [1]. In the past 30 years, due to the growth of population and the acceleration of urbanization, the impact of human activities on the earth’s surface has approached or exceeded the changes brought about by natural factors in intensity, breadth, and speed. On global and regional scales, more and more intense human disturbance activities have had an irreversible and significant impact on surface landscape structure and ecological function and caused a series of ecological and environmental problems, such as soil degradation, habitat destruction, and species diversity decline, which have become a great threat to the sustainable development of human society [5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13]

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