Dynamical changes of land use/land cover and their impacts on ecological quality during China’s reform periods: A case study of Quanzhou city, China

The rapid growth of China’s economy has greatly accelerated the process of urbanization during China’s reform periods. Urbanization has significantly caused land use and land cover (LULC) changes and thus has impacts on the local climate and ecosystem. This study chooses Quanzhou, a fast-developing city of southeast China, as an example to detect and quantify the LULC and ecological changes from 1989 to 2018 by using the remotely sensed technique. The LULC of Quanzhou was derived from the four Landsat images taken in 1989, 1999, 2007 and 2018, and the land-use-degree ratio index and land-use–change method were used to estimate the change of land use. The remote sensing based ecological index (RSEI) was used to detect the ecological changes of the city. The built-up land expansion intensity and annual built-up land expansion rate were carried out for seven districts of Quanzhou. The results show that the urban area of Quanzhou has drastically grown by 192.99 km(2) at the expense of forest, water, and cropland land during the 1989~2018 period. Moreover, the built-up land of seven districts had expanded at the average rate of 0.027~0.154 per year and the built-up expansion intensity was higher than 0.59. The average RSEI value of Quanzhou city dropped from 0.78 in 1989 to 0.34 in 2018, which suggested an overall decline in ecological quality. The proportion of areas with an RSEI rating good decreased from 30.84% to 11.52% while the proportion of areas with rating bad increased from 4.73% to 19.11% during the past 29 years. This study has shown the built-up land expansion intensity is negatively correlated with the ecological quality change, and the increase in built-up land can greatly accelerate the decline of the ecological quality. Government policies play a profound impact on land use changes, urbanization and eco-environment changes. Therefore, the policy decision-makers should take enough action and consider integrating the concept of ecology to enable the healthy and sustainable development of the city.