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Accelerated urbanization and population growth have resulted in the loss of ecological land and biodiversity, accompanied by the degradation of ecosystem services. Identifying and improving existing ecological security patterns are of great significance for maintaining the sustainable development of cities. In this study, Jinan, the capital of China’s Shandong Province, was used as a case study area. Based on three ecosystem services, namely, soil conservation, water conservation and carbon fixation, ecological sources were determined. Furthermore, a resistance surface was constructed based on biodiversity. On these bases, the circuit theory concept of random walks was applied to simulate ecosystem processes in a heterogeneous landscape and identify ecological corridors, pinch points and barriers. A total of 25 ecological sources, 48 ecological corridors and 19 pinch points were identified, and restoration areas were delimited to three levels. These elements together constituted the ecological security patterns. Specifically, the ecological sources were mainly distributed in southern Jinan and were covered mostly with forest land. The ecological corridors were located mainly in the eastern and southwestern plains below the southern mountainous areas and were covered mostly with cropland. Furthermore, the eastern corridors were much longer than the southwestern corridors. Pinch points were distributed mostly along rivers or around large-scale construction land. Barriers were distributed mainly in Zhangqiu District and northern Licheng District. Based on these findings, hierarchical restoration areas were delimited. Differentiated development contradictions in restoration areas were discussed, and corresponding ecological protection measures were proposed. An ecological security optimization pattern of “one center, two wings, and two belts” was finally proposed to provide planning strategies for decision-makers.

Rapid urbanization negatively affects the eco-land. The topic of accurate zoning and control of ecological space has become a challenge for many countries. This paper uses the idea of ESP to delineate the control system of China’s coastal area. First, three types of ecological sources were identified from the aspects of landscape functions’ importance, landscape sensitivity, and landscape connectivity. Then, ecological corridors and nodes were identified using the model of minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) based on the resistance surface. Finally, an ecological control zoning system was constructed by using a \"bottom-up\" transmission mechanism. The results show that: (1) Most of the landscape function-oriented sources and connectivity-oriented sources are located in the south, where habitat quality is superior. Urban construction and agricultural production are the main threat factors to sensitivity-oriented sources. (2) 81.24% of ecological corridors are reticulated, indicating good structural connectivity, and 11 fragile corridors should be specially protected. (3) Among the three second-level of strictly protected areas, the percentage of restoration area and landscape structure maintenance area are 40.19% and 28.47%, indicating the high threat to eco-land and low landscape connectivity; measures are needed to enhance eco-connectivity and increase the resilience of eco-lands. The research constructs a point-line-plane integrated ecological control zoning system, which can provide a scientific basis for the spatial prioritization of coastal ecological protection in China’s coastal areas.

The State Council of the People’s Republic of China issued the National Territory Spatial Planning Outline (2016–2030), which is a fundamental guide and blueprint for China to achieve its Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Based on its sustainable-city initiatives, this paper establishes a “four-space (4S)” assessment framework, and measured the urban development quality (UDQ) of 336 cities in China. Then we analyzed the spatial patterns of UDQ, and identified the main obstacles. Our results show that there is considerable room for improvement in UDQ in China. The spatial pattern of UDQ shows that the eastern economic zone score is higher than the western score and the northern lower than the southern. The spatial efficiency, structure, and quality in Chinese cities have significant hierarchical structure, while the form pattern is complicated. The most important obstacle to China’s high-quality development is spatial efficiency. The most significant limiting indicator is the industrial structure, followed by land output level and land consumption per unit GDP. Our findings help enhance the effectiveness of National Territory Spatial Planning policy implementation and guide China’s urban planning and management to achieve sustainability.

The study of the systematic stability of land use change is essential for regulating land use results and layout. This article took Jinan, China, as an example, and used the land transfer matrix to calculate the changing area and intensity based on remote sensing image maps and land use status maps, and then used the intensity analysis method to compare the changing intensity with the average intensity at three levels: interval level, land category level, and transition level. The systematicity and stability of land use changes from 2005 to 2018 in Jinan were analyzed using intensity analysis. The results showed that the intensity of land use change in Jinan led to a rapid change pattern from 2005 to 2010 and a slow change pattern from 2010 to 2018. The occupation of cultivated land by construction land in Jinan showed high activity, while the transition process of cultivated land to construction land and other land categories showed a steady, systematic change pattern, other land categories showed different trends and intensities of change, and the transition of forest land and other land categories showed stability in time scale. The results showed that the changes in construction land were mainly due to external influences, showing a systematic non-steady change pattern.

This study analyzes the primary factors influencing farmers’ awareness of ecosystem services. This study, through questionnaires, conducts research on farmers’ awareness of and demand for ecosystem service functions. The research encapsulates 156 households from 21 groups of villagers in the Guangxi Karst Ecological Immigration District in China. The results of the factors influencing farmers’ awareness of ecosystem services, analyzed using a regression model, show that: (1) Farmers are concerned with ecosystem service functions that directly benefit them; however, they do not sufficiently understand the ecosystem’s ecological security maintenance or cultural landscape functions; (2) Farmers’ awareness of ecosystem service functions is not consistent with their corresponding demand, including the ecosystem’s leisure and entertainment, social security, disaster prevention and water purification services; (3) Education level, land area cultivated by the household, proportion of the household’s income from agriculture and immigration status directly affect farmers’ awareness of ecosystem services; (4) Farmers’ personal characteristics, family characteristics and subjective attitudes have different effects on the level of ecological service cognition. Understanding farmers’ awareness of ecosystem services, and the influencing factors can help policymakers and development managers plan local development and policies, and enable harmonious development of the human-earth system in immigration regions of China.

This study investigated and simulated land use patterns in Beijing for the year 2000 and the year 2005 from the actual land use data for the year 1995 and the year 2000, respectively, by combining spatial land allocation simulation using the CLUE-S model, and numerical land demand prediction using the Markov model. The simulations for 2000 and 2005 were confirmed to be generally accurate using Kappa indices. Then the land-use scenarios for Beijing in 2015 were simulated assuming two modes of development： 1） urban development following existing trends; and 2） under a strict farmland control. The simulations suggested that under either mode, urbanized areas would expand at the expense of land for other uses. This expansion was predicted to dominate the land-use conversions between 2005 and 2015, and was expected to be accompanied by an extensive loss of farmland. The key susceptible to land-use changes were found to be located at the central urban Beijing and the surrounding regions including Yanqing County, Changping District and Fangshan District. Also, the simulations predicted a considerable expansion of urban/suburban areas in the mountainous regions of Bei- jing, suggesting a need for priority monitoring and protection

To date, various studies have analyzed changes in the landscape but there are few studies which have explored landscape processes and the corresponding driving factors. This study makes up for this deficiency in the systematic theoretical exposition and the spatiotemporal analysis of landscape processes. The results show that the amount of arable land outflow and built-up land inflow have resulted in an increase of 92,311.11 ha of built-up land that is mostly distributed around the administrative center and along the coast of Jiaozhou Bay. The outflow of ecological land is a major resource for replenishing arable land, by 37,016.19 ha, especially in terms of the grassland that is distributed in the hilly areas west of Jiaozhou Bay. The outflow of the salt-field, fish-farm and ecological land outflow have good connectivity, a large patch size, and an irregular shape. The ecological type, elevation, slope, and vegetation coverage are the four factors that have a great influence on all landscape processes. A gentler slope and lower elevation, and proximity to cities and towns land will produce more arable land outflow and built-up land inflow. However, arable land inflow and ecological land outflow are the opposite. This research will guide natural resource management for a rapidly developing coastal zone.

We introduce the Gini coefficient to assess the rationality of land use structure. The rapid transformation of land use in China provides a typical case for land use structure analysis. In this study, a land Gini coefficient (LGC) analysis tool was developed. The land use structure rationality was analyzed and evaluated based on statistical data for China between 1996 and 2008. The results show: (1)The LGC of three major land use types-farmland, built-up land and unused land-was smaller when the four economic districts were considered as assessment units instead of the provinces. Therefore, the LGC is spatially dependent; if the calculation unit expands, then the LGC decreases, and this relationship does not change with time. Additionally, land use activities in different provinces of a single district differed greatly. (2) At the national level, the LGC of the three main land use types indicated that during the 13 years analyzed, the farmland and unused land were evenly distributed across China. However, the built-up land distribution was relatively or absolutely unequal and highlights the rapid urbanization in China. (3) Trends in the distribution of the three major land use types are very different. At the national level, when using a district as the calculation unit, the LGC of the three main land use types increased, and their distribution became increasingly concentrated. However, when a province was used as the calculation unit, the LGC of the farmland increased, while the LGC of the built-up and unused land decreased. These findings indicate that the distribution of the farmland became increasingly concentrated, while the built-up land and unused land became increasingly uniform. (4) The LGC analysis method of land use structure based on geographic information systems (GIS) is flexible and convenient.

In order to solve the problem of extensive land use in rural residential areas and promote the construction of a new socialist countryside and farmland protection, it is important to graspe the temporal and spatial evolution of rural settlements. In this study, with Beijing as an example, the efficiencies of CLUE-S and Markov-CA models in simulating spatial temporal evolution of rural residential areas are analyzed. With 14 driving factors chosen, the land uses in Beijing in 2000 and 2005 are simulated and predicted using the two models. Grid size of 220 m × 220 m is used. The accuracies and Kappa coefficients of the simulation and prediction results are analyzed and the following conclusions are made. The core part of CLUE-S model is logistic regression, which grants it obvious advantage in capturing the trends of land use changes with more discrete distributions. Meanwhile, Markov-CA model takes neighborhood into consideration, making it relatively more advantageous in simulating and predicting changes of land uses with the character of nearest-neighbor diffusion. However, among various land uses, only urban land use has this character, the correct prediction rates of the CLUE-S model in 2000 and 2005 were 60.99% and 81.35%, respectively, while the accuracy of the Markov-CA model prediction was 51.33% and 73.68%, and it is the main reason that CLUE-S model returns better simulation and prediction results of rural residential areas for both 2000 and 2005 than Markov-CA model.

Due to its fragile ecological environment and superior natural and location conditions, coastal areas are receiving extensive attention all over the world. Scientific space control is needed to ensure the harmonious development of the “human-land-ocean” system in this region. The monitoring index system is a crucial grasp of the national territory use control; it is also one of the main contents in the reform of China’s planning system in the new era. Therefore, based on the strategic idea of land–sea overall management and the concept of “life community of human, mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, grasslands, and ocean”, this study puts forward three connotations of the index system of coastal spatial planning from the perspective of “function-structure-elements.” Then, adopting the methods of “multiple planning integration” and expert consultation and using the research idea of “setting control objectives, contents, and indicators,” an index system suitable for coastal space control is constructed. The results show that the index system puts forward 33 sub-indexes for coastal ecological space, living space, and production space and provides a basis for the high-quality development of coastal space through the restrictions and requirements on the total amount, bottom line, boundary, conversion, and quality of various spatial elements. This study can provide a basis for formulation, implementation, and later monitoring of coastal spatial planning and provide an index reference for the management of coastal areas in other countries in the world.