Rapid urbanization has led to significant changes in land surface temperature (LST), which in turn affect the urban thermal environment effect and the health of residents. Exploring the causes of the urban thermal environment effect will provide guidance for promoting sustainable urban development. The spatiotemporal evolution of the urban thermal environment effect within the sixth ring road of Beijing was analyzed by inversion of remote sensing data to obtain the LST in 2004, 2009, 2014, and 2019. In addition, based on multivariate spatial data, we applied the standard deviation ellipse (SDE), spatial principal component analysis (PCA), and other methods to analyze and identify the relationships between the urban thermal environment effect and its influencing factors. The results show that from 2004 to 2019, the spatial distribution of urban development and LST within the sixth ring road of Beijing were closely related, the heat island area showed a small increasing trend, and differences in the thermal environment effect between different administrative regions in different periods were obvious. The main factors affecting the urban thermal environment effect were urban construction intensity, vegetation and water bodies, socioeconomic activities, and geomorphology. It is noteworthy that human factors had a greater impact than natural factors. Among them, the positive effect of the normalized difference impervious surface index (NDBBI) and the negative effect of the fractional vegetation cover (FVC) were the most prominent. This study provides theoretical support for mitigating the urban thermal environment effect and promoting sustainable urban development.

Rapid urbanization has triggered significant changes in urban land surface temperature (LST), which in turn affects urban ecosystems and the health of residents. Therefore, exploring the interrelationship between urban development and LST can help optimize the urban thermal environment and promote sustainable development. Based on remote sensing data from 2004–2019 within the sixth ring road of Beijing, this study investigates the spatiotemporal coupling law of night time light (NTL) and LST using an overall coupling model and analyzes the degree of coordination between them using a coordination model. The spatial response law between them was also analyzed using standard deviation ellipses and bivariate spatial autocorrelation. The results show that, from the perspective of spatiotemporal evolution, the spatial distributions of NTL and LST within the sixth ring road of Beijing were closely related from 2004 to 2019, although the overall coupling of NTL and LST was initially decreased and then continuously increased. From the perspective of coordination types, the main types of coordination between NTL and LST deteriorated over time. The increase in LST lagged behind NTL from 2004 to 2009 (heating hysteresis type), while LST increased ahead of NTL from 2014 to 2019 (heating advance type). This suggests that urban development became less efficient, while LST increases became more significant. In terms of correlation, NTL and LST showed significant positive correlation and spatial positive correlation; the correlation coefficient first decreased significantly and then continued to increase. From 2004 to 2009, the temperature increase caused by urbanization was suppressed due to the 2008 Beijing Olympics and related ecological protection policies, resulting in a significant decrease in the correlation coefficient between NTL and LST. From 2009 to 2019, short-term measures taken by Beijing during the Olympic Games were no longer effective, and the opposition between urban development and related policies made the policies increasingly less effective, thereby increasing the correlation coefficient between NTL and LST, and the increase in LST was more significant. This will greatly affect the urban ecological environment and residents’ health and make the previous government investment to suppress the temperature increase all in vain. This study can provide theoretical and practical support for the development of thermal environment optimization schemes and LST mitigation strategies in Beijing and other cities.

Promoting the coordinated development of basic public services, urbanization, and tourism is crucial to the high-quality development of regional economies. Taking China’s provinces as the research unit, an evaluation system was constructed, and the spatial and temporal evolution and influencing factors of the coordinated development of the three systems from 2010 to 2020 were measured using the coupling coordination model and geographical detector. The results demonstrate that: (1) From 2010 to 2020, there was a rising trend in basic public services, a declining trend and fluctuating stability in urbanization, and an inverted ‘U’ change in tourism; (2) the degree of coupling coordination was in a mild coordination state and showed an upward trend, with spatial distribution being high in the east and low in the west; (3) the degree of coupling coordination was spatially concentrated. The core hot-spot area was mainly in the southeast coastal area, and the core cold-spot area was mainly in the northwest inland area, showing a spatial distribution pattern of hot in the east and cold in the west; (4) the main influencing factors in the spatial difference in coupled coordinated development were per capita GDP, road network density, per capita disposable income of residents, urban unit employees, total import and export of goods, per capita fiscal expenditure, and number of tourists; (5) endogenous power (economic pulling power, infrastructure support power, industrial driving force, population agglomeration power) and exogenous power (government regulation power, market promotion power, social security power) together promote coupling coordinated development.

The Yellow River Basin (YRB) faces escalating pressures from climate variability and intensive land-use change; however, how these drivers jointly shape the water ecosystem services (WES) remains insufficiently quantified. This study assessed water yield, soil conservation, and water purification capacity across the YRB from 2000 to 2020 using the InVEST model. The effects of driving forces, including climate and land-use changes, on WES were examined using scenario simulation and the geographical detector method. During 2000–2020, water yield and soil conservation displayed fluctuating upward trends, increasing by 26.24% and 30.19%, respectively, whereas nitrogen and phosphorus exports declined slightly by 4.82% and 3.08%, indicating a modest improvement in water purification. All indicators exhibited elevated values in the southeast and lower values in the northwest, with clear distinctions among the three topographic zones. The contribution rates of climate change to variations in water yield, soil conservation, nitrogen export, and phosphorus export were 97.4–99.3, 94.5–98.3, 87.2–96.0, and 85.7–95.2%, respectively, indicating the central regulatory role of climatic factors in watershed-scale water-related ecological processes. However, the contribution of land-use factors increased over time and had a significantly greater impact on water purification capacity. Distinct spatial heterogeneity was observed among the WES. Interactions among climatic, topographic, and other factors significantly enhanced the spatial variability of water yield and soil conservation services, while land-use interactions with other drivers had greater impacts on the spatial variability of water purification capacity. Thus, regionally differentiated policy strategies are essential. Our findings provide a quantitative basis for differentiating climate versus land-use interventions in water resource management and designing spatially targeted ecological restoration policies in the YRB and similar regions worldwide.