Satellite Reveals a Coupling between Forest Displacement and Landscape Fragmentation across the Economic Corridor of the Eurasia Continent

Abstract

Jointly building the Economic Corridor of the Eurasia Continent (ECEC), which is one of the most important parts of the Silk Road Economic Belt, is a pivotal initiative for fostering regional development. Forests, which serve as a green foundation of economic resilience, underpin this effort. However, there is an imbalance in ecological status due to differences in natural resources and the social economy along the economic corridor. This imbalance has led to alterations in landscapes, yet the specific changes and their underlying relationships are still much less understood. Here, we quantitatively detected changes in the forest landscape and its ecological efforts over the ECEC via widespread, satellite-based and long-term land cover maps released by the European Space Agency (ESA) Climate Change Initiative (CCI). Specifically, the coupling between changes in forest coverage and landscape patterns, e.g., diversity, was further examined. The results revealed that forest coverage fluctuated and declined over the ECEC from 1992 to 2018, with an overall reduction of approximately 9784.8 km2 (i.e., 0.25%). Conversions between forests and other land cover types were widely observed. The main displacements occurred between forests and grasslands/croplands (approximately 48%/21%). Moreover, the landscape diversity in the study area increased, as measured by the effective diversity index (EDI), during the study period, despite obvious spatial heterogeneity. Notably, this pattern of landscape diversity was strongly associated with forest displacement and local urban development through coupling analysis, consequently indicating increasing fragmentation rather than biological diversity. This study highlights the coupled relationship between quantitative and qualitative changes in landscapes, facilitating our understanding of environmental protection and policy management.