Land use/cover change (LUCC) from increased urbanization significantly impacts regional ecosystem services. Based on a cold/hot spots analysis, this paper used grain yield, food prices, price index statistics, and a land use thematic map to study the impact of LUCC on four ecosystem services values (ESVs) in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, and determine the spatial differences resulting from the rapid urbanization LUCC. The correlation between the four ecosystem services was then studied and sensitivity analyses conducted to investigate whether any changes in the ESVs could lead to unacceptable unit value transfer uncertainties. It was found that most urban land was converted from farmland, and that before 2000, the total ESVs and the regulating services values (RSVs) increased significantly, after which it declined, the provisioning services values (PSVs) declined year on year, the habitat services value (HSV) and cultural and amenity services value (CSV) declined sharply after 2000, and the spatial distribution of the four ESVs were significantly different. Over time, it was found that the hot spots were shrinking and the cold spots were spreading. The provisioning services were found to be negatively correlated with habitat services and cultural and amenity services, the regulating services were weakly positively correlated with the provisioning services and significantly positively correlated with the habitat services and cultural and amenity services, and the habitat services were significantly positively correlated with cultural and amenity services. In the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration, the water area is the most important for the total ESVs, followed by non-bush forest. Paddy field is ranked third. Dryland, bush, grassland, and wetland are less important. The importance of barren land is almost zero. This research provides the government with a scientific basis from which to formulate spatial planning and environmental protection policies for ecological sustainable development in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomeration.

Abandoned cropland may lead to a series of issues regarding the environment, ecology, and food security. In hilly areas, cropland is prone to be abandoned due to scattered planting, relatively fewer sunlight hours, and a lower agricultural input–output ratio. Furthermore, the impact of abandoned rainfed cropland differs from abandoned irrigated cropland; thus, the corresponding land strategies vary accordingly. Unfortunately, monitoring abandoned cropland is still an enormous challenge in hilly areas. In this study, a new approach was proposed by (1) improving the availability of Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images by a series of processes, (2) obtaining training samples from multisource data overlay analysis and timeseries viewer tool, (3) mapping annual land cover from all available Sentinel-1 and Sentinel-2 images, training samples, and the random forest classifier, and (4) mapping the spatiotemporal distribution of abandoned rainfed cropland and irrigated cropland in hilly areas by assessing land-cover trajectories along with time. The result showed that rainfed cropland had lower F1 scores (0.759 to 0.8) compared to that irrigated cropland (0.836 to 0.879). High overall accuracies of around 0.90 were achieved, with the kappa values ranging from 0.851 to 0.862, which outperformed the existing products in accuracy and spatial detail. Our study provides a reference for extracting the spatiotemporal distribution of abandoned rainfed cropland and irrigated cropland in hilly areas.

The urbanization process, such as population growth and the expansion of roads, railways, residential areas, and industrial areas, causes severe landscape fragmentation and changes in the surface temperature balance, resulting in the heat island effect. This study used Landsat data to study the impact of landscape patterns on urban heat islands (UHIs) and temporal-spatial change characteristics. In addition, spatial correlation analysis was employed to detect the relationships between land surface temperature (LST) and landscape patterns. The results showed that the impervious surfaces landscape area increased significantly, and the Woodland landscape area increased. However, the bare land, cropland, and water body area decreased. The cohesion of cropland and woodland landscape in the suburb decreased, and there was a high degree of fragmentation. The difference between the contributions of the central city and suburbs to the whole region is narrowing, and the expansion of urban heat islands is shifting from the central city to the suburbs. The percentage of landscape index (PLAND) and the patch cohesion index (COHESION) of woodland, water body, and cropland were negatively correlated with LST. Meanwhile, the PLAND and COHESION of impervious surface and bare land were positively correlated with LST, and the splitting index (SPLIT) was the opposite of the PLAND and COHESION. The fragmentation of impervious surfaces and bare land landscapes reduces the UHI effect. Based on these results, countermeasures to mitigate the heat island effect are proposed. These measures will play an essential role in improving urban ecology and the environmental quality of human settlements.

Hilly areas are important parts of the world’s landscape. A marginal phenomenon can be observed in some hilly areas, leading to serious land abandonment. Extracting the spatio-temporal distribution of abandoned land in such hilly areas can protect food security, improve people’s livelihoods, and serve as a tool for a rational land plan. However, mapping the distribution of abandoned land using a single type of remote sensing image is still challenging and problematic due to the fragmentation of such hilly areas and severe cloud pollution. In this study, a new approach by integrating Linear stretch (Ls), Maximum Value Composite (MVC), and Flexible Spatiotemporal DAta Fusion (FSDAF) was proposed to analyze the time-series changes and extract the spatial distribution of abandoned land. MOD09GA, MOD13Q1, and Sentinel-2 were selected as the basis of remote sensing images to fuse a monthly 10 m spatio-temporal data set. Three pieces of vegetation indices (VIs: ndvi, savi, ndwi) were utilized as the measures to identify the abandoned land. A multiple spatio-temporal scales sample database was established, and the Support Vector Machine (SVM) was used to extract abandoned land from cultivated land and woodland. The best extraction result with an overall accuracy of 88.1% was achieved by integrating Ls, MVC, and FSDAF, with the assistance of an SVM classifier. The fused VIs image set transcended the single source method (Sentinel-2) with greater accuracy by a margin of 10.8–23.6% for abandoned land extraction. On the other hand, VIs appeared to contribute positively to extract abandoned land from cultivated land and woodland. This study not only provides technical guidance for the quick acquirement of abandoned land distribution in hilly areas, but it also provides strong data support for the connection of targeted poverty alleviation to rural revitalization.

The state of the urban carbon cycle is an important indicator for managing fossil energy consumption and land resources and it is also a basis for the planning of urban eco-services and urban sustainable development. This paper aims to analyze the spatial distribution of the carbon cycle of the mono-centric cities, based on the von Thünen concentric ring theory, using the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs) model and an atmospheric diffusion model to assess the carbon sequestration capacity of land cover/use, to estimate carbon emissions, discuss influencing factors that determine changing trends in carbon sequestration capacity and to predict the changing law of the carbon sequestration eco-service spatial pattern based on scenario simulations. The results of this study show: (1) In Guang’an, the spatial distribution of the carbon cycle follows a concentric ring pattern. From the concentric ring pattern center, the first annular zone represents the carbon emissions, which lie at the concentric ring center; the second annular zone represents the carbon sequestration service; and the third annular zone represents stable carbon stock; (2) The structure of the concentric ring has not changed, but the spatial distribution of carbon sequestration and carbon density has changed due to fossil energy consumption and land cover/use change. From 2014 to 2016, the carbon emission zone shrunk, while the carbon sequestration service zone expanded and the carbon density increased—the increase of forest land is the main factor in the increase of carbon density; (3) The current carbon sequestration eco-service in Guang’an is not the best development condition. The planning of urban eco-service spatial patterns and land cover/use should consider the protection of cultivated and ecological areas at the same time. The results of this study can help the government implement spatial planning and regional policy interventions for land cover/use and eco-service.