Suburban open-pit mining concentration areas are both the frontline of urban expansion and the main battlefield in mineral resource development. These dual forces have resulted in significant land use/cover changes (LUCC), which play a crucial role in determining the ecological environment quality (EEQ). However, research examining how LUCC affects EEQ under the coupled impact of these two development events is currently lacking. In this study, the response of EEQ to LUCC was evaluated using Landsat images from 2000, 2010, and 2020 for the southern suburban open-pit mining concentration area in Jinan City. A relative contribution index was used to address the ecological and environmental effects of non-dominant land use/cover types, and the impact of LUCC on EEQ and its spatial spillover effects were revealed by also carrying out a buffer zone analysis. The findings of this study indicate that: (1) the dominant land use/cover types that influence the EEQ spatial pattern are farmland, grassland, and construction land. Among them, the area of farmland was the largest, with more than 1800 $\mathrm{k}{\mathrm{m}}^2$. Changes in non-dominant land use/cover types to mining land and mine rehabilitation made the most significant relative contribution to the changes in EEQ, i.e., 0.0735 and 0.0184, respectively. (2) The transformation of farmland into construction land and mining land and woodland into mining land was shown to exacerbate the deterioration of the EEQ in the study area, with a deterioration area of 1367.54 $\mathrm{k}{\mathrm{m}}^2$ and spatial spillovers of up to 1000 m. (3) Returning farmland to woodland and grassland, as well as returning mine rehabilitation, were found to be the main factors contributing to the improvement of EEQ in the study area, with an improvement area of 1335.67 $\mathrm{k}{\mathrm{m}}^2$ and spatial spillover extending from 500 to 800 m. (4) Nevertheless, uneven changes in land use/cover continue to aggravate the agglomerative effect of EEQ deterioration. Further refinement and enhancement of the methods and standards of ecological governance are urgently needed to counterbalance the uneven spatial spillover effects between ecological degradation and improvement. This study provides a scientific reference for the promotion of ecological protection and sustainable development in mining cities.

Urbanization has significantly impacted ecological connectivity, making the optimization of ecological networks (ENs) crucial. However, many existing strategies focus on overall network structure and overlook the spatial concentration of local ecological processes flow (EPF), limiting the effectiveness of ecological planning. This study proposes a novel EN optimization framework based on urban–rural gradient spatial zoning to enhance connectivity from the perspective of EPF. The framework divides areas outside the core urban zone (CUZ) into the urban fringe zone (UFZ), urban–rural interface zone (UIZ), and natural rural zone (NRZ), applying tailored optimization strategies in each zone. These strategies include increasing corridor redundancy, reducing corridor resistance, and expanding corridor width to alleviate EPF concentration. Using Jinan, a mega-city in China’s Yellow River Basin, as a case study, this study simulated EN changes over 20 years and validated the framework’s effectiveness. Optimization validation showed that increasing ecological land in low-flow corridors to 65% in the UIZ and expanding NRZ corridors to 5 km improved connectivity by 6.3%, addressing seven pinch points and three barrier points. This study highlights the importance of optimizing ENs via urban–rural zoning to support sustainable development and ecological protection policies.

Constructing ecological networks (ENs) is an effective measure to mitigate the conflict between urban development and ecological conservation. However, existing simulating methods lack adequate consideration of human ecological demands and the spatial scale differences between these demands and natural ecological processes. This might lead to issues such as incomplete ecological process cycles or structural mismatches being overlooked during ENs simulations. To address these gaps, this study proposed an urban multi-scale nested ENs simulating framework that integrates human ecological demands with natural ecological processes. The framework first simulated an ENs focused on natural ecological process cycles at a global scale (GS). Then, it simulated an ENs centered on human ecological needs within the core urban areas at local scale (LS). Finally, it nested these multi-scale ENs by using cross-scale ecological supply sources as connecting points. This framework was applied to simulate spatio-temporal pattern changes in ENs of Jinan City, a core city in downstream of the Yellow River in China, aiming to mitigate cross-scale ecological conflicts between human–nature interactions under the background of urbanization. The study’s findings revealed that the area of demand sources increased by 8.56 times over 20 years. the area of cross-scale supply sources decreased by 15 km² relative to 2000, and the deterioration in connectivity was more pronounced in GS compared to LS, with a decline of approximately 13.8%. These changes indicate the presence of incomplete ecological process cycles and structural mismatches across the multi-scale boundaries within the study area, which have been worsening annually. We recommend optimizing Jinan City’s multi-scale ecological network through three key strategies: rectifying internal structural mismatches, protecting core ecological areas, and aligning regional ecological demands. Implementing these strategies could significantly improve the network structure, reduce cross-scale mismatches, and enhance ecological connectivity by about 9%. This study highlights the importance of addressing structural mismatches and promoting complete ecological cycles in urban multi-scale ENs simulating, providing valuable insights for formulating urban multi-scale ecological conservation and restoration policies.

With the rapid development of my country’s economy and the advancement of urban-rural integration, the urban population has increased sharply, people’s basic survival problems have been solved, and more and more attention has been paid to landscapes and landscape water. The sources of water pollution were described, the effects and characteristics of water restoration methods were analyzed and compared, and suggestions were made for landscape water restoration.Immobilization technology has great advantages in ecological restoration of landscape water bodies, with strong environmental adaptability and high tolerance to environmental conditions.