ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Land Use Dynamics
This article is part of the Research TopicDynamics of Land Use Change: Ecological Conservation, Restoration Strategies, and Carbon BalanceView all 3 articles
Land use change patterns and landscape ecological risk assessment in the process of watershed ecological compensation
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hydraulic Engineering Institute, Jiangxi University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Nanchang, China
- 2Jiangxi University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Nanchang, China
- 3School of science, Jiangxi University of Water Resources and Electric Power, Nanchang, China
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As China's pioneering cross-provincial ecological compensation zone, the upper Xin'an River Basin harbors immense ecological value. However, the long-term effects of its compensation policies on land use dynamics and associated landscape ecological risks (LER) remain poorly understood. Leveraging Google Earth Engine (GEE), this study analyzes land use changes from 1990 to 2020 and develops an LER assessment model to characterize spatiotemporal risk patterns. The GeoDetector model is then employed to quantify the relative influence of four categories of driving factors on LER. The results reveal that: (1) Forests have consistently dominated the landscape, with notable expansions in forest, waterbody, and urban areas, while cropland and tea plantations have declined; key transitions include bidirectional conversion between forests and tea plantations, as well as cropland conversion to other land uses; (2) The overall LER in the watershed has generally declined, particularly during the ecological compensation period, underscoring the policy's positive impact. Spatially, LER exhibits distinct clustering patterns, with high-risk areas concentrated near urban centers and low-risk zones prevailing in mountainous regions; and (3) Natural factors, especially elevation and temperature, are the dominant drivers of LER patterns, while socioeconomic and accessibility factors have a limited impact. Collectively, these findings reflect the interplay between urbanization and ecological conservation efforts, offering a scientific foundation for optimizing watershed management under ecological compensation frameworks.
Keywords: Xin'an river basin, Land use changes, Landscape ecological risk, Driving factors, Ecological compensation watershed
Received: 12 Oct 2025; Accepted: 20 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Chen, Ren, Ren, Luan and Luo. 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:
Hui Luan, nithui@163.com
Liancong Luo, llc@juwp.edu.cn
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