Land use changes in the coastal zone of China’s Hebei Province and the corresponding impacts on habitat quality

The coastal zone is a transition zone between land and sea, and has a high biodiversity. Land use changes in the coastal zone will inevitably have huge impacts on habitat quality and biodiversity. However, in previous researches, land use changes in the coastal zone over long time scales were usually neglected due to available data. In addition, quantitative assessment methods have not been widely used to clarify the contributions of changes in land use on changes in habitat quality. Therefore, we integrated topographic map and remote sensing data to analyze land use changes in the coastal zone of Hebei Province (CZHP) in China from 1950 to 2017. Furthermore, we used the InVEST model to evaluate the influence of land use changes on habitat quality. The results showed that dramatic land use changes occurred in the CZHP from 1950 to 2017. The areas of wetland and idle land decreased by 78.41 and 72.03 %, respectively. Substantial lands were reclaimed for as cultivated land, aquaculture, and industrial and mining land. At the same time, the areas of residential land and industrial and mining land increased by 345.63 and 975.19 %, respectively. The expansion of residential land occurred at the cost of cultivated land loss, while the increase in industrial and mining land was mainly a result of the occupation of wetland and idle land. Land use changes in the CZHP led to an obvious decrease in habitat quality, with an average decline of 37.37 % from 1950 to 2017.