Effects of Human Activities on Urban Vegetation: Explorative Analysis of Spatial Characteristics and Potential Impact Factors

Abstract

Since the 21st century, large cities around the world have experienced the transition from economically destructive development to a harmonious eco-environment. Understanding the dynamic relationships between human activities and urban eco-environment in this transition is a challenging and essential topic. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) can reflect the urban vegetation cover status well. Socio-economic indexes can present the intensity and spatiality of human activities quantitatively. This work aims to use traditional regression models and machine learning algorithms to analyze the impact of socio-economic factors on NDVI accurately. Random forest regression (RFR) was performed to initially assess the contributions of all factors on NDVI, which was the numerical basis for feature selection. Subsequently, detailed dynamic relationship simulations were implemented using geographically weighted regression. In the case of Wuhan in China, the results showed that the goodness-of-fit of NDVI with socio-economic factors generally exceeded 50%. The influence coefficients changed from negative to positive, and 2010 was the turning point, indicating that human activities gradually played a favorable role in protecting vegetation during this transition period. The urban–rural interface, which was located between urban centers and marginal urban suburbs, was the area where human activities contributed most to vegetation. Thus, policy makers should focus on planning and managing housing construction and vegetation planting in urban–rural interface to relieve the population burden of the central area and improve the environmental conditions of the urban eco-environment subconsciously.

The quantitative effects of climate change and human activity on the vegetation growth in the Yangtze River Basin

“…It should be noted that the growth of vegetation is also affected by a variety of meteorological factors, including light, humidity, etc., so multiple factors need to be considered comprehensively in research and monitoring. It is worth noting human activity is an important contributor to both climate change and the growth of vegetation (Li et al, 2022). China and India are crucial to the greening of the world's terrestrial vegetation, which is greatly impacted by human activity through afforestation projects and increased agricultural efficiency (Chen et al, 2019).…”