Spatiotemporal Evolution Analysis of Habitat Quality under High-Speed Urbanization: A Case Study of Urban Core Area of China Lin-Gang Free Trade Zone (2002–2019)

Lisu Chen,Daolun Feng,Qiang Fu,Qiong Wei

doi:10.3390/land10020167

Abstract

This paper, examining the Pilot Free Trade Zone Lin-Gang Special Area in China (Shanghai), identifies the relationship between urban expansion and habitat change and analyzes the influence mechanism of habitat quality (HQ) on spatiotemporal distribution. The results show the following: (1) From 2002 to 2019, the HQ in the study area decreased significantly, and the spatial differences gradually expanded over time. The HQ was low in the southwest and high in the northeast, and low-level habitats gradually moved to the southwest. This spatiotemporal evolutionary law was consistent with the local government’s 2003–2020 plans, which are composed of the joint development of a logistics park in the north, the Lin-Gang industrial zone in the west, and Shanghai port in the south. (2) Due to the interspersed distribution of high and low habitats caused by urban development and expansion, Moran’s index in spatial autocorrelation decreased over time, which means the spatial agglomeration of HQ decreased and that homogeneity increased. (3) The spatial distribution of HQ was quantified by landscape analysis. The results showed that the fragmentation degree in high-level habitat areas increased with time, while the middle-level habitat areas first increased and then decreased, and the low-level habitat areas displayed the opposite change in trend to that of the middle habitat.

Highlights

Published: 6 February 2021Urbanization is an inevitable global process [1]
The land reclamation project in the core area of Lin-Gang started in June 2002. It can be seen from the land use transfer matrix (Table 1) that up to 2006, a total of 32.8 km2 of the ocean converted to land, of which 23.8 km2 was converted into wetlands, accounting for the vast majority of the area transferred from the ocean
The results show that the overall habitat quality declines with the increase in buildings

Summary

Introduction

Published: 6 February 2021Urbanization is an inevitable global process [1]. China is in an era of rapid development. 47.5% of the world’s total new urban area, and the rate of urban expansion is more than three times that of developed countries [2]. Urban development is regarded as a symbol of regional economic prosperity, the use and transformation of land and increasing human activities have led to a series of environmental problems, such as soil erosion, environmental pollution, habitat degradation, biodiversity reduction, and ecosystem imbalance [3,4,5,6,7,8]. Under the interference of human activities, land use changes in a certain space–time range change the spatial structure of the landscape, restrict various landscape ecological processes, affect the distribution of habitats, and thereby affect human survival and social development

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion