Despite the Yangtze River Basin (YRB)’s abundant land and forestry resources, there is still a dearth of research on forecasting habitat quality changes resulting from various geographic and environmental factors that drive landscape transformations. Hence, this study concentrates on the YRB as the focal area, with the aim of utilizing the Patch Landscape Upscaling Simulation model (PLUS) and the habitat quality model to scrutinize the spatial distribution of landscape patterns and the evolution of HQ under four scenarios: the natural development scenario (NDS), farmland protection scenario (CPS), urban development scenario (UDS), and ecological protection scenario (EPS), spanning from the past to 2030. Our results show that (1) from 2000 to 2020, the construction land in the YRB expanded at a high dynamic rate of 47.86% per year, leading to a decrease of 32,776 km² in the cultivated land area; (2) the UDS had the most significant expansion of construction land, followed by the NDS, CPS, and EPS, which had higher proportions of ecologically used land such as forests and grasslands; (3) from 2000 to 2020, the HQ index ranged from 0.211 to 0.215 (low level), showing a slight upward trend, with the most drastic changes occurring in the low-level areas (−0.49%); (4) the EPS had the highest HQ (0.231), followed by the CPS (0.215), with the CPS increasing the HQ proportion of the lower-level areas by 2.64%; (5) and in addition to government policies, NDVI, DEM, GDP, and population were also significant factors affecting landscape pattern and changes in habitat quality.

Hydrological problems, such as flood disasters, can be caused by the influence of urbanization on river network structures in plain areas. Taking the main urban region of Zhengzhou city as the research area, based on six remote sensing images from 1992 to 2015, the modified normalized difference water index method and a land-use transfer matrix were used to reconstruct river network data to study the temporal and spatial changes in the river system. In addition, the analytic hierarchy process and the entropy weight method were used to construct pattern indexes of the river system to quantitatively evaluate the inner relationship between the urbanization process and the river network structure in the plain area. The results showed that the percentages of arable land, forest and grassland, water, and unused land in Zhengzhou that was transferred to construction land from 1992 to 2015 were 59.10%, 51.05%, 29.83%, and 58.76%, respectively. In the past 34 years, the morphological indices, structural indices, and connectivity indices of the river system experienced a trend of high to low, and then increased, with the structural indices being significantly correlated with construction land use (p < 0.05). The regression equation R² between urbanization level and river length, water area, river network density, water surface rate, connection rate, and connectivity ranged from 0.677 to 0.966, which could well reflect the response relationship between urbanization and the river network. In addition, the outflow was greater than the inflow, which has destroyed the natural structure of the channel.

Construction of water conservancy projects has changed the hydrological situation of rivers and has an essential impact on river ecosystems. The influence modes of different factors on runoff alterations are discussed to improve the development and utilization of water resources and promote ecological benefits. The ecological hydrological indicator change range method (IHA–RVA) and the hydrological alteration degree method were integrated to evaluate the hydrological situation of the Min River in China. Based on six Budyko hypothesis formulas, the rates of contribution of climate change and human activities to runoff change are quantitatively analyzed. The results show that (1) the runoff of the Min River basin showed a significant decreasing trend from 1960 to 2019 and a sudden alteration around 1993; (2) the overall alteration in runoff conditions was 45% moderate and the overall alteration in precipitation was 37% moderate; (3) precipitation and potential evapotranspiration also showed a decreasing trend within the same period but the overall trend was not significant; (4) the contribution of climate variability to runoff alterations is 30.2% and the contribution of human activities to runoff alterations is 69.8%; human activities are the dominant factor affecting the alteration of the runoff situation in the Min River basin.

River water and sand conditions are important factors affecting river morphology, biogeochemical processes and ecosystems. However, climate change and long-term human activities have changed the water–sediment conditions of rivers. This study combines the ecohydrological indicator range of the variation approach (IHA-RVA) and the genetic planning approach in order to dissect the water–sediment situation and its ecological response relationship in the upper Yangtze River. The synergistic effects of climate change and human activities on sediment–runoff were quantified based on the Budyko hypothesis and the sediment attribution decomposition method. The results showed that the interannual trend in sand transport decreased significantly compared to the runoff at each station in the upper Yangtze River, and that it began to change abruptly in 1985 and 1993, respectively (mean values of 56.8% and 70%, respectively); there were also different degrees of decreases in fish species diversity attributed to the combined effects of reduced rainfall and reservoir construction. The factors driving changes in watershed runoff were dominated by human activities (approximately 60%), while changes in sand transport were mainly driven by the sand production capacity in the watershed, both of which contributed more than 95%. The research process and results contribute to an in-depth understanding of the characteristics and driving mechanisms of river water and sand evolution under changing environments, and provide a scientific basis for watershed water resource management and ecological restoration.