Ecological Indicators (Jan 2024)
Impacts of ecological land fragmentation on habitat quality in the Taihu Lake basin in Jiangsu Province, China
Abstract
The quality of the habitats and ecosystem services are significantly impacted by ecological land fragmentation brought on by human activities. However, the specific driving mechanism of the ecological land comprehensive landscape fragmentation on the habitat quality is still unclear. This study took the cities of Suzhou, Wuxi, and Changzhou along the Taihu Lake basin as its research region. The spatiotemporal variations in habitat quality and their relationship with the ecological land comprehensive landscape fragmentation were explored by the land-use dynamic rate, land-use transfer matrix, comprehensive landscape fragmentation indices, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) habitat quality model, and the Geographically and Temporally Weighted Regression (GTWR) model during the 2000–2020 period. The findings revealed that: (1) On the whole, the ecological land area rose, and the northern and eastern areas of the research region had the greatest transformations in land use/land cover (LULC). (2) Within the research region in the study period, the ecological land comprehensive landscape fragmentation index showed a fluctuating growth trend, and there were regions with large areas of high value clustered. (3) In the 2000–2020 period, the habitat quality as a whole deteriorated, with more concentrated habitat degradation seen around the woodland and construction land. (4) Numerous factors contributed to the regional and temporal changes in habitat quality and the effect of ecological land comprehensive landscape fragmentation on the quality of its habitats varied between regions. These findings could provide theoretical guidance for ecological land protection, habitat quality improvement, and ecosystem restoration in areas with similar environments.
