Impact of Expressways on Land Use Changes, Landscape Patterns, and Ecosystem Services Value in Nanping City, China

Even as it promotes economic development, the rapid development of expressways has important effects on its surrounding land use, landscape patterns, and ecological environment. In this study, we took the 10 km buffer zone of the expressways network in Nanping City as the study area with the support of GIS. Changes in land use, landscape patterns, and ecosystem-services value along expressways were analyzed using buffer zone analysis, statistical analysis, model of changes in land use and landscape indices, and ecosystem services value model. The results showed that forest land was the main land-use type along expressways in Nanping City from 2005 to 2015. The construction land area increased significantly when it was closer to the expressways, while the area of cultivated land decreased significantly when it was closer to the expressways. For the temporal changes, the increase in the area of forest land and construction land was mainly due to the transfer of grassland and cultivated land. The patch density and shape of construction land showed increasing and complex trends, respectively, while the patch density and shape of other land types showed decreasing and simple trends. The patch distribution of construction land and forest land was more concentrated, while other land types tended to be scattered, especially unused land. The influence of expressway on the surrounding landscape pattern was about 4 km. Expressway mainly caused the increase of landscape patch density and diversity index, and the decrease of landscape shape index and aggregation index. The value of ecosystem services in forest land and water gradually decreased and increased, respectively when they were closer to the expressways. Four kilometers was the range of influence of the expressway network on ecosystem-services value in Nanping City. The study provides a decision-making reference for regional ecological