Spatio-temporal evolution analysis of land use change and landscape ecological risks in rapidly urbanizing areas based on Multi-Situation simulation − a case study of Chengdu Plain

Abstract

Land use change in emerging nations raises landscape ecological risks (LERS), hastens the deterioration of urban and rural ecosystem services, endangers human well-being, and undermines sustainable development in the face of rapidly increasing urbanization. Here, using the Chengdu Plain as the study area and long time series data from 2000 to 2020, the optimal time span is selected for multi-context spatio-temporal simulation. The land use map of Chengdu Plain in 2025 under the four scenarios of “Natural Development” (ND), “Economic Priority Development” (END), “Ecological Priority Development” (ELD), and “Sustainable Development” (SD) was simulated, and the multi-indicator landscape ecological risk index (ERI) was generated to compare and analyze the differences between land use and landscape ecological risk under different policy preferences. Subsequently, the land use data from 2025 to 2040 were simulated, the landscape ecological risk pattern was mapped, and the spatial and temporal evolution analysis from 2010 to 2040 was conducted to explore the spatial evolution law of land use change and landscape ecological risk. Based on the results, the high ecological risk aggregation areas are prone to appear in END scenarios, whereas medium-ecological risk aggregation areas are more likely to appear in ELD scenarios, and the government should focus its policy on arable land protection. Moreover, the land use pattern of cultivated land surrounding construction land and forested land surrounding cultivated land, caused by the irrational single-core development pattern and the policy of returning farmland to forests, has exacerbated the landscape ecological risk of the Chengdu Plain, constituting a unique landscape ecological risk pattern. It’s also important to remember that the Chengdu Plain’s less economically developed regions need to focus on the high-quality development of ecological land use. We adopted high-precision simulation methods to simulate the complex land use changes in rapidly urbanizing areas and explored the spatial evolution law and causes of landscape ecological risk evolution in the context of land use changes, with the intention of offering a solid theoretical foundation for such areas’ future planning in developing nations.