Abstract
With their significance in connecting socio-economic development and related eco-environmental consequences, land use transitions have gradually become the focus of land change science and sustainability science. Although various research studies have determined the ecological effects of land use transitions and provided suggestions to regulate them, few studies have investigated the different ecological stress of construction lands from the perspective of their spatial locations in ecologically differentiated regions. Taking economically developed and highly urbanized southern Jiangsu in Eastern China as an example, we developed a process-based method to indicate the spatial heterogeneity of ecological suitability and divided southern Jiangsu into five-level ecological zones accordingly. Considering that construction lands in ecological zones with higher ecological suitability levels cause greater ecological stress, we evaluated the ecological stress levels of incremental construction lands at different stages after 1990. Then, we carried out the calculation of county-level ecological stress and county-level zoning based on both the area and ecological stress level of their incremental construction lands. Results indicated that ecological zones with the highest to lowest ecological suitability levels accounted for 49.85%, 25.73%, 15.56%, 6.51%, and 2.34%, respectively. The majority of the incremental construction lands had the highest and moderately high ecological stress levels, and they were mainly distributed in areas along the Yangtze River and around Taihu Lake. The general ecological stress level of southern Jiangsu was at a relatively high level at each stage, but the county-level patterns of ecological stress levels were spatially different. As determined from the relationship between the amount of incremental construction lands and the average stress level associated with these lands in each unit, four types of zones, i.e., H-H, H-L, L-H and L-L zones, were identified, and targeted suggestions on land use regulations were proposed. We conclude that the spatial distribution of incremental construction lands significantly affects their ecological consequences from the perspective of maintaining ecosystem integrity. Both construction lands and ecological suitability are location specific, so the location-oriented evaluations could provide an effective approach for determining the spatial patterns of land use transitions based on spatially differentiated ecological consequences. It is essential to propose location-specific policies to carry out spatially precise ecological restoration and the redistribution of incremental construction lands.
Highlights
Since the late 1970s, unprecedented urbanization and industrialization have taken place in China [1,2]
China as an example and tried to answer the following questions: (1) How do we indicate the spatial differentiation of ecological suitability, especially from the perspective of maintaining necessary ecological process? (2) What are the spatial patterns of the expansion of construction lands and how can we evaluate their ecological stress caused by different locations during transitional stages? (3) What are the spatial patterns and temporal changes of differential ecological stress of construction lands? In the following parts, we firstly provide a brief introduction of southern Jiangsu and the adopted methodology, examine the spatial ecological suitability pattern based on the significance of maintaining ecological processes, and evaluate the differentiated ecological stress levels caused by the presence of incremental construction lands at different stages
Aiming to promote sustainable development and coordinate the relationship between land development and ecological protection, with the help of the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model and ecological process simulations, we identified the spatial differentiation of ecological suitability levels
Summary
Since the late 1970s, unprecedented urbanization and industrialization have taken place in China [1,2]. Land use transitions have taken place recently and have become the focus of land use research, especially in rapid developed and urbanized China [9,10,11]. Aiming to promote sustainable development and coordinate land development and ecological protection, the current state of research suggests that assessing the spatial stress associated with land use transitions and the expansion of construction lands is urgent for providing insight into policymaking and for regulating land use transitions [14,15]
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