ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Environmental Informatics and Remote Sensing
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1626195
Assessing Ecological Environmental Quality and Conservation Effectiveness in the World's Largest Urban Green Heart Using the Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) and Propensity Score Matching (PSM)
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China
- 2Institute of Subtropical Agriculture, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Changsha, China
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Urban Green Hearts (GHs) represent a unique ecological protection measure or policy. Evaluating the spatiotemporal dynamics of the ecological environmental quality (EEQ) of urban GHs and revealing their conservation effectiveness is crucial for promoting the coordination between regional development and environmental preservation. The Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration Green Heart (CZT-GH) isrepresents the largest Green Heart (GH) globally., It servesfunctioning as a vitalcrucial ecological protection barrier for urbanitesurban populations. Green Hearts (GHs) can significantlyeffectively regulatinge regional environmental quality and climate, increaseenhancinge landscape heterogeneity, and protectsafeguarding biodiversity. However,.systematic analysis and evaluation of the ecological environmental quality (EEQ) of GHs hasremain rarely been systematically analyzed and evaluatedlimited. This study focuses onexamines the Changsha-Zhuzhou-Xiangtan urban agglomeration Green Heart (CZT-GH) and its 3 km buffer zone, assessevaluating the effectiveness of ecological environment protection following the implementation ofGH policy implementation, and examinesanalyzing the spatiotemporal dynamics of EEQ. The Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) was computedcalculated onusing the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform, and theconservation effectiveness was analyzedevaluated through Propensity Score Matching (PSM) and Wilcoxon tests. The resultsfindings indicatereveal that: (1) OverThe theRSEI pastdemonstrated 31an years, theaverage annual growth rate of RSEI averaged0.0038 year -1 over 31 years, with notablesignificant increases in two periods:during 1990-2013 (0.0045 year -1 ) and 2013-2020 (0.0089 year -1 ). ( 2) Comparing pre-and post-GH policy implementation periods (1990-2013 vs. 2013-2020), areas with improvingshowing EEQ improvement increased from 77.15% to 89.69%, while areas with stable and decreased EEQ droppeddeclined from 22.36% to 10.17%. (3) GH policy demonstrates significantsubstantial positive conservation effects, andwith both GH and the 3 km buffer zone haveexhibiting shownEEQ improvementsin EEQ. This research offersprovides criticalvaluable insights for GH management approachesstrategies and enhancing the harmonybalance between regional growthdevelopment and environmental conservationpreservation.
Keywords: Ecological environment quality, Google Earth Engine, Remote Sening Ecological Index, Propensity score matching, Urban Green Heart
Received: 10 May 2025; Accepted: 08 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Wu, Liu, Meng, Li and Gan. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Huanyao Liu, Hunan Agricultural University, Changsha, China
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