Human activities and ecosystem health: A historical analysis of Poyang Lake

Urbanization, industrialization, land development, and other human activities have led to ecological issues such as shrinking lake wetlands, fragmented cropland, and reduced biodiversity. Taking the Poyang Lake urban agglomeration as the study area, the textual analysis method was used to analyze the typical facts of the historical succession of human activities since 1949, and then the index method and the spatial analysis method were adopted to characterize the spatial and temporal evolution of the ecosystem health and human activities in the period of 2003–2020. On this basis, the spatial spillover effects of human activities on ecosystem health were investigated based on the spatial Durbin model in four dimensions. The results of the study show that since 1949, human activities in the Poyang Lake area have gone through the management path from “agricultural retreat and fishery advancement” and “dike reclamation” to “sand ban” and “returning the lake”. Ecological protection has gone through the sublimation from “enlightenment” to “full implementation” to “strengthening and upgrading”. The ecosystem health of Poyang Lake urban agglomeration from 2003 to 2020 has been in the range of 0.37709 ∼ 0.3709 ∼ 0.3709. 0.37709 ∼ 0.48485, with the spatial characteristics of “low in the center and high in the periphery”. The city expansion and agricultural activities in the county are generally distributed in the pattern of “high center, low periphery”, while the spatial distribution of water body area is characterized by “near-lake” and “near-river”, and the newly registered enterprises show a change from “point” to “surface”. The spatial distribution of water body area is characterized by “proximity to the lake” and “proximity to the river”, and the newly registered enterprises show changes from “point” to “surface”. There is a significant spatial competition effect on the effects of city expansion on ecosystem health, while there is a significant negative spatial collaboration effect on the effects of industrial activities, and agricultural activities show a significant spatial spillover effect. The results of the study can provide more detailed empirical support for the regulation and management of ecosystem health in global lakeside urban agglomerations.