Urban-rural development and transformation is profoundly changing the socioeconomic system as well as the natural environment. The study uses the AHP (Analytic Hierarchy Process) method to construct a top-down index of human activity based around five dimensions (population, land, industry, society, and environment) to evaluate the spatial characteristics in the region east of the Hu Huanyong line, China, in 1994 and 2010. Then, we investigate the spatial-temporal pattern using the methods of hotspot analysis, local Moran’s I index and Pearson correlation coefficient. The calculation showed that: (1) northeast China was experiencing an economic recession during study period, and the implementation of revitalization plan have not controlled the recession trend yet; (2) Pearson correlation analysis showed that the improvement of population quality promote the development of industry and society systems significantly during study period; and (3) negative correlation between Population Development Index (PDI) change and Population Transformation Index (PTI) change (along with the Society Transformation Index (STI) change and Industry Transformation Index (ITI) change) reflected that east of the Hu Huanyong line, China was in a “demographic dividend” period. Then, with the help of SOFM neural network algorithm, we divided the study area into six types of region, and found that municipalities, provincial capitals, Yangtze River Delta region and cities on the North China Plain owned the greatest development, while cities in southwest and northeast China showed relatively poor development during study period. Full article

Vegetation is one of the most important components of the terrestrial ecosystem and, thus, monitoring the spatial and temporal dynamics of vegetation has become the key to exploring the basic process of the terrestrial ecosystem. Vegetation change studies have focused on the relationship between climatic factors and vegetation dynamics. However, correlations among the climatic factors always disturb the results. In addition, the impact of anthropogenic activities on vegetation dynamics was indeterminate. Here, vegetation dynamics in 14 provinces in Eastern China over a 10-year period was quantified to determine the driving mechanisms relating to climate and anthropogenic factors using partial correlation analysis. The results showed that from 1999 to 2008, the vegetation density increased in the whole, with spatial variations. The vegetation improvement was concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, with the vegetation degradation concentrated in the other developed areas, such as Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region and the Pearl River Delta. The annual NDVI changes were mainly driven by temperature in Northeast China and the Pearl River Delta, and by precipitation in the Bohai Rim; while in the Yangtze River Delta, the driving forces of temperature and precipitation almost equaled each other. Furthermore, the impact of anthropogenic activities on vegetation dynamics had accumulative effects in the time series, and had a phase effect on the vegetation change trend. Full article

Changes in biodiversity owing to vegetation degradation resulting from widespread urbanization demands serious attention. However, the connection between vegetation degradation and urbanization appears to be complex and nonlinear, and deserves a series of long-term observations. On the basis of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the image’s digital number (DN) in nighttime stable light data (NTL), we delineated the spatiotemporal relations between urbanization and vegetation degradation of different metropolises by using a simplified NTL calibration method and Theil-Sen regression. The results showed clear and noticeable spatiotemporal differences. On spatial relations, rapidly urbanized cities were found to have a high probability of vegetation degradation, but in reality, not all of them experience sharp vegetation degradation. On temporal characteristics, the degradation degree was found to vary during different periods, which may depend on different stages of urbanization and climate history. These results verify that under the scenario of a vegetation restoration effort combined with increasing demand for a high-quality urban environment, the urbanization process will not necessarily result in vegetation degradation on a large scale. The positive effects of urban vegetation restoration should be emphasized since there has been an increase in demand for improved urban environmental quality. However, slight vegetation degradation is still observed when NDVI in an urbanized area is compared with NDVI in the outside buffer. It is worthwhile to pay attention to landscape sustainability and reduce the negative urbanization effects by urban landscape planning. Full article