Spatial and temporal analysis of landscape ecological quality in Yulin

Yulin is one of the important energy chemical industry area in China, located at the intersection of Loess Plateau and Mu Us Desert, and the vulnerability of ecosystem in this area is extremely prominent. Landscape ecological quality research helps to enhance ecological protection and high quality development in the region. The Remote sensing images in 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and 2018 of Yulin were interpreted to the landscape thematic data by ERDAS and ArcGIS10 and the landscape ecological quality model has been established in terms of the landscape ecological stability and disturbance. This paper aimed to reveal the spatial–temporal characteristics of landscape ecological quality. The results showed that: (1) the trend of landscape ecological quality firstly improve then degrade and enhance again during 2000–2018. (2) the landscape ecological quality improved and the areas with poor and fair landscape ecological quality reduced and the areas with high landscape ecological quality increased from 2000 to 2010. (3) the ecological quality was not optimistic during 2010 and 2015, with the areas with high landscape ecological quality reduced.(4) the ecological quality improved again from 2015 to 2018, and the areas with highest landscape ecological quality reaching 65.201% of total area. The changes of ecological quality were mainly driven by the project of returning farmland to forest, which increased vegetation coverage, reduced soil erosion, and achieved obvious results in ecological benefits, and these results may provide helpful information for the ecological conservation and development. •The topic is novel. Currently, there are few studies on landscape ecological quality.•This paper is taking innovative research methods—stability and disturbance, and constructing a landscape ecological quality evaluation model based on the characteristics of the study area using the landscape ecological index.•The research results are helpful to increase the attention to the quality of landscape ecology which promote the further development of landscape ecology.