Spatial–Temporal Patterns and Driving Forces of Ecological-Living-Production Land in Hubei Province, Central China

Abstract

Ecological-living-production land (ELPL) is gaining an increasing attention of governors, planners and scholars to alleviate ecological deterioration on the premise of ensuring regional sustainable development in China. This paper has built an ecological-living-production land classification system (ELCS) by the reclassification method, and further analyzed the spatio-temporal characteristics and evolution mechanism of ELPL from 2009 to 2014 with a case study of Hubei Province of Central China. The results show that (1) land with an ecological function held a dominant role in Hubei Province. Ecological land (EL) and production-eco land (PEL) covered the largest areas. The area of EL was the largest in Western Hubei Eco-cultural Tourism Circle (WHETC), and the area of PEL accounted for the largest proportion in Wuhan Urban Circle (WUC). (2) Land with an ecological function was decreasing continuously, while the land with living function expanded rapidly. Additionally, the intensity of ELPL changes in the WUC was higher than that in the WHETC. (3) The changes of ELPL threatened the food and ecological security and adversely affected the sustainable development. The factors of population growth and GDP increase were the main driving forces of ELPL change. The results of this study provide valuable information for planning decision makings (e.g., the ELPL spatial pattern optimization).

The Production–Living–Ecological Land Classification System and Its Characteristics in the Hilly Area of Sichuan Province, Southwest China Based on Identification of the Main Functions

“…The Pearson correlation coefficient is used to present the linear relationship between two random variables. It has been widely used in correlation analysis of land use impact factors [2]. In this paper, 12 natural and socio-economic factors (Longitude, Latitude, Altitude, Relative altitude, Surface roughness, Location condition, Population density, Government revenue, Crop sown area, Gross industrial output, Total retail sales of social Consumer goods, and Urban built-up area) were selected to correlate with the proportion of PL, LL and EL.…”

“…In recent decades, along with rapid industrialization, urbanization and economic development, dramatic changes in land use have been observed in China. On the other hand, the conflict between population, resources and the environment is becoming more serious, and the competition between various lands is becoming increasingly fierce [2]. For example, wetlands or other ecological land have been destroyed or have even disappeared.…”

“…The research scale can be divided into three levels; the first is large-scale, and Zhang et al [17] and Liu et al [14] have constructed the national classification system of PLEL in China and revealed the spatial pattern of PLEL. The second is the medium scale, mainly taking provincial-level regions, large river basins and urban agglomerations as research objects, covering Hubei Province [2], Chongqing province [18], Jiangsu province [19,20], Yangtze River basin [21,22], Bailongjiang River basin [23], Fujian Delta urban agglomeration [3], Jianghuai urban agglomeration [24], and Wuhan urban circle [25] in China. The third is the small scale; the main research objects are county-level regions in China's main ecological regions [26][27][28][29][30][31][32].…”

A Conflict Identification Method of Urban, Agricultural and Ecological Spaces Based on the Space Conversion Matrix

“…Industrialization and urbanization have brought about remarkable achievements of socio-economic development in China since the economic reform and implementation of the Opening Door Policy [1,2]. However, this process has also induced certain sustainable development issues [3,4], especially serious land space conflicts caused by disordered development and misuse of land space [5][6][7]. Rapid urbanization leads to a continuous expansion of urban space at the expense of agricultural and ecological spaces [8][9][10][11][12][13].…”

“…Rapid urbanization leads to a continuous expansion of urban space at the expense of agricultural and ecological spaces [8][9][10][11][12][13]. The increasing population and their growing food demands lead to the occupation of ecological space by agricultural space [6]. In addition, the unsound institutions and systems for land space management are important reasons for this phenomenon [5].…”