Abstract
The karst region of Southwest China is one of the largest continuous karst areas in the world, and the ecosystem in the karst region is extremely fragile. The city of Liupanshui, a typical karst area in southwestern China, has provided the main energy and raw materials during China’s rapid urbanization in the past few decades. With the continuous deterioration of the environment in Liupanshui and from the viewpoint of sustainable development strategies, research on ecosystem health (ESH) and the assessments of correlations between urbanization and ESH plays an important role in regional sustainable eco-environmental development. Therefore, the impact of urbanization on the ecosystem health of the study area was discussed in this study using a series of remote sensing images and socio-economic data from 1990 to 2015. Studies showed that Liupanshui is undergoing rapid urbanization, and the growth of urbanized land reached a peak between 2010 and 2015. From 1990 to 2015, the level of ESH in Liupanshui trended downward and then increased. During 2000 to 2010, due to the policy of returning farmland to grassland and forestland, the substantial increase in woodland and grassland and the management policy of mining areas have caused a turn in ESH. Although the value of ecosystem health in 2010–2015 increased, the process of urbanization is rapid, so we should pay more attention to the trend in future ecosystem health changes. The findings revealed that urbanization significantly negatively affects the ecosystem health of Liupanshui, and mining has the greatest impact. Therefore, in future urban development, strengthening the management of resource extraction and the supervision of environmental protection, continuing to return farmland to grassland and forestry, and controlling rocky desertification can improve the health of the urban ecosystem in the study area.
Highlights
Today, according to the World Urbanization Prospects: 2018 Revised Edition of the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs (UNDESA), by 2050, approximately 55% of the world’s population will live in cities, and the global urbanization rate is expected to reach 68% [1]
∑in=1 Aij × D j − Di where i is the i-th land-use cover; j is j-th land-use cover transformed from the i-th in a specific period; Aij is the area of i-th land-use cover transforming to j-th; A is the total transformed area of all land-use types in the entire study area during this period; and Di and Dj represent the ecological level of the land use/land cover (LULC) types before and after transposition (Table 1)
The results showed that the Land use change direction model (LCDM) value increased from 1990 to 2015, indicating that the changes in land use types from 1990 to 2015 had a beneficial effect on the ecosystem function of the study area
Summary
Urbanization has had many negative effects on ecosystems [2]. For resource-based cities, as the regional economy develops, energy demand increases [3]. This lead to the reduction of resources, and affects the health of the ecosystem, through vegetation reduction, biological genetic variation, biodiversity loss, water cycle disturbance, pollution discharge, and land desertification [4]. Ecosystems provide humans with service functions in terms of resources and living environment, and its service function is the cornerstone of human survival and development [5]. The impact of urbanization on the ecosystem must be explored
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