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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Land Use Dynamics
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2024.1516703
This article is part of the Research Topic The Sustainable Management of Land Systems View all 22 articles

Impact of multi-scenario land-use changes on habitat quality evolution in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Provisionally accepted
BoWen Dong BoWen Dong 1Tiantian Huang Tiantian Huang 2*Delin Huang Delin Huang 1*Tao Tang Tao Tang 3*Chen Tang Chen Tang 4*
  • 1 School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Wuhan, China
  • 2 School of Mathematics and Science, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Wuhan, Hubei Province, China
  • 3 School of Economics and Trade, Hubei University of Economics, Wuhan, China., Wuhan, China
  • 4 Wuhan Municipal Planning Research Institute, Wuhan, China., Wuhan, China

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Ecosystems worldwide are facing significant challenges resulting from the dual pressures of global climate change and human activities, particularly in terms of significant biodiversity loss associated with land-use change. Focusing on the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), this study uses the System Dynamics (SD) - Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) model to simulate land-use development under different scenarios of shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs) from 2030 to 2050. Furthermore, the InVEST model is applied to evaluate changes in habitat quality (HQ) over the period 2000 to 2050. A hotspot analysis further highlights the spatial heterogeneity of HQ within the YREB. The study showed that the land-use pattern in the YREB from 2020 to 2050 will be dominated by cropland in the eastern region, grassland in the north-west, and forest land in the central and southern regions, with a steady increase in built-up land in the east. The HQ index exhibits a gradual increase from east to west, ultimately declining to 0.726 under the SSP585 scenario for 2050. This trend reflects moderate habitat degradation (HD), with the degree of degradation shifting towards lower and higher proportions of HQ. Spatial analysis of HQ further reveals that the eastern region is identified as a cold spot, the central region is categorized as non-significant, while the western region emerges as a hot spot, where HQ exceeds 40%. These findings offer a scientific foundation for promoting high-quality development and enhancing biodiversity conservation in the YREB.

    Keywords: habitat quality, SD model, Plus model, InVEST model, SSP-RCP scenarios, Yangtze River Economic Belt

    Received: 24 Oct 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Dong, Huang, Huang, Tang and Tang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence:
    Tiantian Huang, School of Mathematics and Science, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei Province, China
    Delin Huang, School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences Wuhan, Wuhan, China
    Tao Tang, School of Economics and Trade, Hubei University of Economics, Wuhan, China., Wuhan, China
    Chen Tang, Wuhan Municipal Planning Research Institute, Wuhan, China., Wuhan, China

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.