The impact of land urbanization on ecosystem health in the Yangtze River Delta urban agglomerations, China

Exploring the impact of land urbanization on ecosystem health is of great significance for alleviating ecological degradation and achieving regional sustainable development. This paper employs the methods of bivariate spatial autocorrelation analysis and spatial panel Dubin model to assess the impact of land urbanization on ecosystem health during 2000–2019, taking 124 counties in Yangtze River Delta Urban agglomerations (YRD), China, as the study area. The results show that ecosystem health exhibits spatial clustering across the counties in YRD. Land urbanization has a significant negative spatial spillover effect on ecosystem health. Specifically, as the land urbanization increases by 1 %, ecosystem health will decline by approximately 0.1043 % in YRD, the direct effect and feedback effect are −0.0652 % and − 0.0391 %, respectively. In addition, GDP per capita and urban compactness are benefit for ecosystem health. These findings may offer insights into the decision-making for urban sustainable development.