Based on the land-use data of 2000 and 2015, this study makes a quantitative analysis of the ecological environment effect in Pearl River Delta using the ecological environment quality index and the ecological contribution rate of land-use change types. The results showed the following: (1) During 2000–2015, the land-use changes in Pearl River Delta mainly manifested in the reduction of cultivated land, forest land, water area, and unused land, while the area of construction land and grassland showed an increasing trend. The quality of ecological environment in the Pearl River Delta was largely stable but slightly declined overall; (2) Over the past 15 years, the comprehensive ecological environment index of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration has decreased by 0.02. With an average annual decrease of 0.11%. The spatial expansion caused by urbanization had the most profound impact on the decline of the ecological environment quality in the Pearl River Delta; (3) The eco-environmental quality indices of various cities in the Pearl River Delta declined to varying degrees. The city with the largest decline was Dongguan, followed by Shenzhen and Zhongshan. The spatial differentiation characteristics of the eco-environmental quality index indicate that the ecological quality preferences of cities distributed around the study area and close to the inland areas, while the ecological quality of the central coastal cities are biased. The quality of the ecological environment is related to the basis of the regional ecological environment. The research results have important practical significance for maintaining regional ecological balance and promoting the sustainable use of land resources, and they provide a reference for the study of the ecological and environmental effects of land-use changes in key cities in economically developed areas.

The identification and management of ecological restoration areas play important roles in promoting sustainable urban development. However, current research lacks a scientific basis for the scope and scale of ecological restoration. Further, the absence of a framework to assess policy goals and public preferences that leads to identification of ecological restoration areas across the science-policy interface is difficult, and the existing frameworks’ performance has little applicability. We proposed a transdisciplinary framework to combine ecological quality, ecological health, and ecosystem services as an assessment endpoint to identify priority restoration areas. Further, we classified the ecological restoration areas on a township scale by K-means. Based upon policy goals and public preferences of the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration, we chose air quality, biodiversity, soil fragility, recreation quality, ecosystem vigor, landscape metrics, and the water supply ecosystem service as elements of the evaluation system. This study showed that priority restoration areas accounted for 10.8% of the urban agglomeration area and classified township, largely in the difference between natural and semi-natural ecosystems and the human environment. Policymakers can use this framework comprehensively and flexibly to identify and classify ecological restoration areas to achieve policy goals and fulfil public preferences.

Forestland has been a focus of urbanization research, yet the effect of urbanization on forest land change on an urban agglomeration scale still remains unclear. Screening and quantifying the main factors affecting forest land changes have practical significance for land planning and management. Considering the characteristics of the region and referring to related studies, 26 natural, social, and economic factors were screened in the Pearl River Delta (PRD), where land-use changes are intense. Geographically weighted regression and the relative importance were used to quantify the spatial heterogeneity of these main factors. There was still a large area of deforestation evident in the PRD with its afforestation area of 604.3 km² (mainly converted from cropland) and a deforestation area of 1544.6 km² (mainly converted from built-up land). The effects of socio-economic factors were the main factors for these forest land changes, especially the rural population and migration. Deforestation mainly occurs in urban growth boundaries, which will be the focus area for further land management. These main factors have the potential to provide a methodological contribution to land-use changes, and the results of this study can provide a solid theoretical basis for forest land management and urban planning (e.g., balancing expansion of built-up land and ecological protection that advances forest land protection and restoration).

Human activities are changing the quality of ecological spaces continually, and creating increasing imbalances in ecosystem services. Hence it is necessary to identify the distribution equity in ecological spaces. In 2018, the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration was used as a test case to analyze the distribution characteristics of ecological space quality (ESQ) among different demographic groups and explore socioeconomic factors’ determining forces. The imbalance in ESQ distribution was less than that in income. At the urban and rural scales, the difference in ESQ was not significant, but rural areas had both the best and worst ecological space. Further, the equality of urban ESQ was higher than that in rural areas. Higher-quality ecological spaces were concentrated both in low-income groups, in addition to the cities of Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In areas with higher income gaps, the ecological pressure was concentrated primarily on low-income counties, but more ecological health risks were detected among high-income counties. Limiting rural population density and increasing rural residents’ income can improve the ESQ significantly. The government should improve ecological protection consciousness and ecological compensation policies, particularly with respect to the supervision of, and compensation for, ecological spaces for low-income counties in rural areas to reduce the imbalance in ecosystem services and the burden on those counties.