After the first industrial revolution, urbanization level worldwide has increased rapidly. As the largest developing country in the world, China has witnessed a rapid improvement in its urbanization level in recent years. Nevertheless, the quality of urbanization has not been improved simultaneously. The relationship between the level and the quality of urbanization has thus become a hot topic for researchers. By introducing the concept and model of decoupling in the field of resources and environment into the analysis of urbanization level and quality, this study evaluated the relationship between urbanization level and urbanization quality of 285 prefecture-level cities in China from 2005 to 2014. It was found that: (1) The urbanization level and urbanization quality in China are unbalanced because the former is growing in a faster rate than the latter. The average urbanization level of China has increased by 27.40% from 42.99% in 2005 to 54.77% in 2014, while the increase of urbanization quality, however, is much slower with only 11.21% for the same period. It can be concluded that China has paid more attention to urbanization level than urbanization quality. (2) From 2005 to 2014, the relationship between China’s urbanization level and quality showed a total of eight decoupling states, of which the main ones were strong negative decoupling (non-ideal state) and growth negative decoupling (close to ideal state), accounting for 38.32% and 33.49% of the total number of samples in China, respectively. (3) The change of urbanization level and urbanization quality in China can be divided into two stages: for the first stage from 2005 to 2010, with rapid improvement in urbanization level, and the other from 2011 to 2014, with rapid improvement in urbanization quality. (4) Spatially, the areas with significant decoupling between urbanization level and urbanization quality are mainly distributed in underdeveloped areas such as the west; and the decoupling presents the spatial pattern of the highest in the west, the second in the middle, and the lowest in the east.

Land use change has significant impacts on the regional and global environment; thus, in-depth research on the associated ecological risks is necessary for promoting ecological restoration and sustainable development. Xinjiang, China, is characterized by a fragile ecological environment, and this study aimed to predict the land use change in the region in 2030 under different scenarios, including natural development, ecological conservation, and urban development, by using the PLUS model based on land use data from 2000, 2010, and 2020. Based on the landscape structure of regional ecosystems, we developed a comprehensive ecological risk assessment framework by utilizing a combination of landscape disturbance index, vulnerability index, and loss index. This framework allowed us to evaluate the spatiotemporal patterns and variations of landscape ecological risks under different scenarios in 2030. The study results indicate the following: (1) During the period from 2000 to 2020, the primary landscape type in Xinjiang was unused land. However, significant changes were observed in the area of cultivated land, mainly due to the conversion of grassland and construction land. The expansion of construction land during the urbanization process resulted in a decline in ecological landscapes, such as grassland, thereby weakening the ecosystem’s stability. (2) Under different simulation scenarios, the urban development scenario primarily led to the conversion of unused land into construction land, which is beneficial for economic development. On the other hand, the ecological conservation scenario resulted in a modest increase in construction land and a transformation of unused land into forest and grassland, which aligns with the principles of sustainable development. (3) Different scenarios in 2030 result in varying degrees of changes in each landscape type in Xinjiang, with the spatial distribution characteristics of landscape ecological risks remaining similar to those observed in 2020. Notably, under the urban development scenario, the area of lowest and medium risk areas decreases significantly while the area of higher and highest risk areas increases substantially. Conversely, under the ecological conservation scenario, the area of the lowest risk areas experiences a more significant increase. (4) Overall, the spatial differences in the ecological risk of Xinjiang’s landscape are significant, with HH and LL clustering types predominating and presenting a polarization pattern. The distribution pattern is low in the north and high in the central and southern parts of the study area.

Ecosystem restoration has been widely concerned with the damage and degradation of ecosystems worldwide. Scientific and reasonable formulations of ecological restoration zoning is the basis for the formulation of an ecological restoration plan. In this study, a restoration zoning index system was proposed to comprehensively consider the ecological problems of ecosystems. The linear weighted function method was used to construct the ecological restoration index (ERI) as an important index of zoning. The research showed that: (1) the ecological restoration zones of the Qilian Mountains can be divided into eight basins, namely the headwaters of the Datong River Basin, the Danghe-Dahaerteng River Basin, the northern confluence area of the Qinghai Lake, the upper Shule River to middle Heihe River, the Oasis Agricultural Area in the northern foothills of the Qilian Mountain, the Huangshui Basin Valley, Aksay (corridor region of the western Hexi Basin), and the northeastern Tsaidam Basin; (2) the restoration index of the eight ecological restoration zones of the Qilian Mountains was between 0.34–0.8, with an average of 0.61 (the smaller the index, the more prominent the comprehensive ecological problem representing the regional mountains, rivers, forests, cultivated lands, lakes, and grasslands, and thus the greater the need to implement comprehensive ecological protection and restoration projects); and (3) the ecological problems of different ecological zones are frequently numerous, and often show the phenomenon of multiple overlapping ecological problems in the same zone.