Abstract
The exploitation, utilization, and protection of land resources are some of the great social problems during the process of rapid urbanization in China. The status of land use directly affects ecosystem health (ESH). The evaluation of ESH and the spatial correlations between urbanization caused by human interference help us to analyze the influence of urbanization on ecosystems and also provide new insight into reasonable and scientific resource management. In this study, we evaluated the ESH of Gannan, in Jiangxi Province, China, based on ecosystem service values (ESV) and selected a series of indicators to detect the impact of urbanization on ecosystem health in 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010. and 2015. Remote sensing (RS) and the Geographic Information System (GIS) were used as processing tools to calculate basic data and to map the results based on different terrain gradients. The results show that ecosystem health suffered a downward trend from 1990 to 2015. Especially, the area proportion at an unhealthy level and average health (ave-health) level increased prominently, and the area of a well state decreased. Further, the results indicate that urbanization had a negative impact on ESH. The degree of a negative correlation increases with the process of urban sprawl. In addition, we found that from 1990 to 2015, the area proportion of a degraded level and unhealthy level was the highest on the first terrain gradient, and as the terrain gradient increased, this area proportion also decreased. However, the high interference region occupies a higher proportion in the lower terrain gradient. Consequently, the results could reveal the impact of urbanization on ecosystem health and could provide an even more effective service for a sustainable development.
Highlights
With the rapid development of urbanization in China, human activities have significant impact on the structure and function of ecosystems [1,2,3], which have caused serious degradation to the ecosystem [4]
We selected multiple indicators to measure ecosystem health (ESH) at different terrain gradients, and we explored the spatial correlations between urbanization and ESH by heterogeneity and hotspot analysis
In view of the impact of urbanization on the ecosystem health in Gannan, government departments are required to conduct reasonable ecological planning according to the actual situation, so as to contribute to the sustainable development of the whole region
Summary
With the rapid development of urbanization in China, human activities have significant impact on the structure and function of ecosystems [1,2,3], which have caused serious degradation to the ecosystem [4]. How to balance the development of ecosystem health and human interference is the subject of extensive research, including in China [5,6]. The degree of human interference is a measure of human impact on the ecosystem, and its level depends on the extent to which human activities hinder the natural development of the ecosystem [7,8]. It is very important to balance the relationship between urban development and ecosystem health, whereas monitoring the states of ecosystem health (ESH) and analyzing the effects of urbanization on the ecosystem provides an effective way of urban sustainable growth
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