Land use changes are an important factor contributing to the increasingly severe deterioration of the ecological environment. Therefore, regional analyses of land use and ecological risk should be developed for the restoration of ecological functions. In this study, a comprehensive ecological risk assessment was constructed on a regional scale and applied to Daye, a traditional mining city in China. Cointegration analyses and Granger causality tests were used to explore the complex relationship between land use and ecological risks in the study area from 2007 to 2021. The results show a long-term and stable relationship between land use changes in different sub-regions and ecological risks, albeit with distinct Granger causality relationships. This research presents the development trend of the relationship between land use change and ecological risks in a mining city, from rapid economic growth to economic restructuring and full-region ecological governance.

While previous research has underscored the profound influence of the ambient population distribution on the spatial dynamics of crime, the exploration regarding the impact of heterogeneity within the ambient population, such as different income groups, on crime is still in its infancy. With the support of mobile phone big data, this study constructs an index of ambient population heterogeneity to represent the complexity of the social environment. After controlling for the effects of total ambient population, nonlocal rate, transportation accessibility, crime attractors, and crime generators, this study employs a negative binomial regression model to examine the influence of ambient population heterogeneity and different income groups on the spatial manifestations of thefts. The findings indicate that ambient population heterogeneity significantly escalates the incidence of thefts, with middle and upper-middle-income groups acting as more attractive targets, whereas the higher-income group exerts a deterrent effect. The interaction analysis shows that increased population heterogeneity contributes to social disorder, thereby amplifying the attractiveness of the ambient population to perpetrators. These conclusions highlight the crucial role of ambient population heterogeneity in explaining crime dynamics and therefore enrich the routine activity theory.