Identifying the Drivers of Habitat Quality in Beizhen with Consider Arable Land Protection Based on the PLUS-InVEST Model

Rapid economic development and implementation of environmental policies have greatly changed land-use/ land- cover (LULC) at different periods, and effective evaluation of spatiotemporal progression about habitat quality (HQ) influenced by LULC changes at a finer spatial scale is meaningful for sustainable development. This study coupled the PLUS and InVEST models to analyze the influence of various factors on LULC, and then obtain the influence of these changes on HQ from 2000 to 2020. Based on this analysis, that scenario has been simulated for 2040: the arable land protection scenario (APS) and the natural increase scenario (NIS). The results showed that: (1) LULC between 2000-2020 was dominated by arable and garden land. (2) HQ improved steadily, particularly between 2011-2020. The main natural factors influencing HQ were elevation and distance to water, whereas the important anthropogenic factors were GDP and distance to secondary roads. (3) The simulated HQ indices of APS and NIS in 2040 were 0.501 and 0.525; the largest differences were in forestland and dryland. The urban expansion area in the APS was 1.62 km(2) less than NIS. These results indicate the need for government to adopt reasonable approaches to managing areas of different HQ.