Ecological Indicators (Oct 2023)
Exploring the land ecological security and its spatio-temporal changes in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China, 2000–2020
Abstract
With the rapid development of new urbanization in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB), it has hindered the sustainable development of land resources and posed a great threat to the regional land ecological security (LES). So, it is of great significance to explore the spatiotemporal evolution, and convergence characteristics of LES in the YREB. In this study, we chose the panel data of 11 provinces in the YREB from 2000 to 2020 to measure and analyze the levels of LES, the degree of regional differences, the sources of those differences, and the distribution dynamics using the entropy weight method, the Dagum Gini coefficient and the three-dimensional kernel density estimation method. The study also combines the coefficient of variation and a spatial convergence model to examine the convergence characteristics of LES in the context of new urbanization in the YREB. The results indicate that the levels of LES in the YREB and its three main regions (upstream, midstream, and downstream) are on an upward trend, showing a clear spatial pattern (high in the middle and low in the east and west), and that the absolute differences are decreasing. No polarization is evident, and the differences between the regions are the primary source of overall differences. The new urbanization has a significant positive effect on the LES of YREB and three regions. These results have a number of practical implications for the provinces of the YREB, which should take full account of their resources and environmental conditions, introduce land ecology protection policies tailored to local conditions, actively promote the synergistic management of the land ecology of the upstream, midstream, and downstream regions, and provide quantitative support for the coordinated promotion of new urbanization and the land ecological protection.
