Spatiotemporal evolution of ecological environment quality in arid areas based on the remote sensing ecological distance index: A case study of Yuyang district in Yulin city, China

Abstract

The ecological environment in arid areas of Northwest China has undergone considerable changes under the combined effects of climate change and human factors. Therefore, exploring the spatial and temporal evolution of the ecological environment quality is of great significance for the protection and management of the ecological environment in arid areas of Northwest China. This study adopted Yuyang district as the study area. Landsat Thematic Mapper/Operational Land Imager images from 1993 to 2018 were selected as the data source for the retrieval of important surface indicators and the construction of the remote sensing distance ecological index. The spatial distribution, trend, and grade classification of the ecological environment quality were monitored and analyzed. The results showed that (1) the ecological environment quality of Yuyang district from 1993 to 2018 showed an overall upward trend, mainly manifested as a sharp decline in the area of poor ecological environment from 84.81 to 53.36%. (2) The spatiotemporal changes in the ecological environment quality showed a downward trend in the central urban area and an upward trend in the noncentral urban area. (3) In general, rainfall and temperature had limited impact on the ecological environment quality. Urbanization seriously affected the local ecological environment quality and the implementation of the ecological restoration policies, regulations, and measures were the main drivers of the improvement to the ecological environment quality in other surrounding areas.

Evaluation of the Ecological Environment Quality of the Kuye River Source Basin Using the Remote Sensing Ecological Index

“…Water and heat are two of the most important natural conditions for promoting vegetation growth and vegetation cover, which affect the ecological processes of plant communities and the plant growth cycle. Precipitation changes are directly related to NDVI and WET in this region, they can improve the quality of the local ecological environment [14]. Therefore, water and heat conditions play an important role in the ecological environment of the Kuye River.…”

“…Simultaneously, the watershed is ecologically vulnerable [13]. When humans improperly use one or more functions of a watershed, it often has negative impacts on the ecological environment of the watershed [14], which impacts its ability to self-integrate into normal operations [15], resulting in ecological imbalance and environmental damage of the watershed [16]. Therefore, real-time, rapid, and accurate monitoring of the watershed ecological environment is an important link in watershed ecological protection.…”

Long-Term Ecological Environment Quality Evaluation and Its Driving Mechanism in Luoyang City

“…The changes in the ecological environment quality of Luoyang city have been significantly influenced by changes in land cover types [42], as well as being benefited by soil conservation. However, the increasing soil conservation services are also due to the vegetation and water conservation factors, which in turn contribute to the improvement of ecological environment quality.…”

Comprehensive influence of water resources development and utilization on ecological environment in Taohe River basin

“…Usgs. Gov/) series of Landsat data, choose the commonly 7 to 9 month cloud cover less than 30% of the images, the remote sensing image in ENVI 5.3 software to complete the radiation calibration, atmospheric correction, Mosaic, cutting is calculated after preprocessing steps such as remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) [18][19][20] .…”