Spatiotemporal responses of habitat quality to land use changes and the underlying driving factors in the Shiyang River Basin
Hou Huimin
Guo Feng
Wang Pengquan
Wang Hui
Zhang Wenjing
Lu Di
Abstract：[Objective]The Shiyang River Basin is an ecologically fragile arid basin in Northwest China and faces habitat degradation under the dual influence of human activities and climate change.Understanding future habitat quality change and its riving mechanisms is critical for ecological conservation and territorial spatial planning.This study predicts the spatiotemporal variation in habitat quality under different land use scenarios in the basin and identifies its driving forces.[Method]The FLUS model was used to simulate spatial changes in land use in 2035 under three scenarios:cultivated land protection,natural development,and ecological protection.The InVEST model was then applied to predict the spatiotemporal variation in habitat quality;the random forest classification algorithm was used to quantify the importance of the driving factors in affecting the spatial differentiation of habitat quality.[Result]From 2020 to 2035,the spatial distribution of habitat quality remained generally consistent across different land use scenarios.In 2020,areas with low-grade habitat quality and high-grade habitat quality accounted for 47%and 35%of the total area of the region,respectively,with the remaining classified as medium-grade habitat quality areas.[Conclusion]Under all three land use change scenarios from 2020 to 2035,habitat quality in the Shiyang River Basin decreases from the southwest to the northeast,but the overall ecological habitat quality shows an improving trend.
Keywords：Shiyang River Basinhabitat qualityFLUS modelInVEST modelscenario prediction
Publication Date：2026-07-31
Online Publishing Date：2026-09-12(First online date of this platform, not the publication date of the document)
Pages：9( 125-133 )