Landscape Dynamics in a Poverty-Stricken Mountainous City: Land-Use Change, Urban Growth Patterns, and Forest Fragmentation

Abstract

For poverty-stricken mountainous cities in China, both poverty alleviation and ecological restoration projects are sources of land-use change in urban development. However, the patterns in changes are understudied in light of sustainable forest management. The study aims to explore the characteristics of land-use change in a poverty-stricken mountainous city with a focus on forests. This research proposed a three-step approach to explore the multi-aspect dynamics of land change, including the differences among land-use categories, spatial characteristics of urban expansion, and forest fragmentation. This study investigated Enshi City, China, based on land-use data from 2000, 2010, and 2020. Throughout the two intervals, the gain of water bodies and the loss of grassland were active. Artificial surfaces increased most intensively from 2010 to 2020, with transitions from grassland and cultivated land. Edge-expansion was the dominant type of artificial surface growth. Furthermore, forests had the largest size of gain across the two intervals, and there was a substantial reduction in forest fragmentation in the western part of the city. The findings confirm that recent planning measures are effective in restoring the natural environment. The identified key areas can support sustainable forest management in urban growth.

The Ecological Management and Sustainable Development of Forests

“…At the macro-scale, this Special Issue discusses three aspects of forest ecosystem characteristics and management, i.e., characteristic identification [5][6][7][8], mechanism analysis [9][10][11], and optimization management [12].…”

“…The authors suggested that ecological restoration projects enhanced the main ecological function of individual regions, and conducted a detailed analysis of the impacts of the "Grain for Green" project. Wen et al (2023) [6] proposed a three-step approach to explore the multi-aspect dynamics of land change, including the differences among land-use categories, spatial characteristics of urban expansion, and forest fragmentation, and explored characteristics of land-use change in a low-income mountainous city (Enshi City, China). The findings confirmed that recent planning measures were effective in restoring the natural environment, and that the identified key areas can support sustainable forest management during urban growth.…”

Spatiotemporal Evolution of Habitat Quality in Typical Resource- Depleted Cities in China Based on Land Use Changes

“…Human activities such as agricultural farming and urbanization are important drivers of habitat quality evolution, and land use change is the most direct reflection of human activities [39][40][41], so land use transformation is one of the main factors in habitat quality. This study found that land use changes in Jiaozuo City from 1990 to 2020 were relatively drastic, mainly due to the interconversion between cultivated land and other types of land, while the expansion of construction land directly or indirectly led to an overall decline in habitat quality.…”