Spatio-temporal analysis and simulation of urban ecological resilience in Guangzhou City based on the FLUS model

Prediction of urban ecological risk, which is increasing with the rapid development of China’s economy, has become more complex and difficult, resulting in great damage to the safety of people’s lives and property and the quality of the ecological environment. Elucidation of the change mechanism of the urban ecological resilience level from the perspective of the resilience characteristics and exploration of the spatiotemporal differences of the urban ability are necessary to prevent and resolve ecological risks. To this end, here, a model for the evaluation of urban ecological resilience was constructed by considering three aspects: resistance, adaptability, and resilience. The spatiotemporal change pattern of urban ecological resilience in Guangzhou from 2000 to 2020 was evaluated. Furthermore, a spatial autocorrelation model was used to explore the management model of Guangzhou’s ecological resilience in 2020. Finally, based on the FLUS model, the spatial pattern of urban land use under the 2035 benchmark and innovation- and entrepreneurship-oriented scenarios was simulated and the spatial distribution of the ecological resilience level under different urban development scenarios was evaluated. We found that from 2000 to 2020, areas with a low ecological resilience expanded to the northeast and southeast, whereas areas with a high ecological resilience significantly decreased; from 2000 to 2010, original high-level regions in the northeast and east of Guangzhou were transformed into medium level regions. Further, in 2020, the southwestern region of the city will show a low level of resilience and high density of pollutant discharge enterprises, indicating that the ability to prevent and resolve environmental and ecological risks in this region is relatively low. Additionally, the overall ecological resilience of Guangzhou under the innovation- and entrepreneurship-oriented “City of Innovation” urban development scenario is higher than that under the benchmark scenario in 2035. The results of this study provide a theoretical basis for the development of resilient urban ecological environment.