Degradation or Improvement? An Analysis of Ecological Effects of Land Use Change in Mountainous Rural Areas: A Case from the Yunnan-Kweichow Plateau, China

Abstracts: Rural land use change (RLUC) is both a consequence and a cause of ecological change. Human activities have dramatically altered rural land use, leading to degradation and further ecological risks in rural ecosystems. Therefore, understanding the ecological response to RLUC is crucial for the sustainable development of rural regions. This research analyzed the spatial and temporal characteristics of RLUC and ecological-environmental quality (EEQ) in the Yunnan-Kweichow Plateau (YKP), China from 2000 to 2020. By integrating comprehensive indicators of land-use change dynamics, the ecological environmental quality index (EEQI) and the ecological contribution ratio, the study revealed the impacts of RLUC on EEQ. The results are as follows: 1) In YKP, land use types are mainly forest land, farmland and grassland, accounting for 58.31%, 23.03% and 17.03%, respectively. 2) The change in ecological quality in YKP from 2000 to 2020 is relatively stable, and the ecological quality of the YKP showed a spatial pattern of ‘high in the south and low in the north’, the high ecological quality area accounted for the majority of the study area (63.14%). 3) Improvement and degradation of the YKP ecological environment coexist, with the trend of overall improvement being higher than the trend of degradation, which was 63% and 61%, respectively. 4) Among the influencing factors of ecological environment change in YKP, the natural factors and socio-economic factors are both the key determinants of ecological environment quality, and the percentage of farmland, the intensity of human activities, and the slope become the most influential factors of the ecological environment quality. These findings provide a theoretical basis for the optimization of regional land management and ecological protection in YKP.