Environmental effects of land-use/cover change caused by urbanization and policies in Southwest China Karst area – A case study of Guiyang

Land-use/cover change (LUCC) caused by urbanization has impacted environment and become an important factor driving global change. Karst is a very fragile environment and the LUCC can cause massive change of the environment. An integrated approach was used to explore the environmental effect of LUCC with urbanization and China's ecosystem restoration projects during the period 1996–2010. The results show that the area dedicated to arable land, grassland, water area, and unused land have declined by 243.04 km2, 22.96 km2, 2.06 km2 and 13.61 km2, whereas the size of forestland and construction land have increased by 153.85 km2 and 127.82 km2, respectively. The overall environmental quality, measured using environmental quality index, has improved; however, the improvement only occurred in suburb districts. The variation of green land per capital, forestland and grassland were the main reasons for the environmental change. Further environmental degradation caused by urbanization and LUCC possibly continue in the coming decades and therefore environment protection should be the priority for the development in Karst areas. •An integrated method was used to explore the environmental effects of land-use/cover change in Southwest China Karst area.•The main driver of the environmental change is the variation of forestland area.•The green land area per capita was negatively correlated with urbanization level.•Ecosystem restoration projects enhanced the environmental quality.