Comprehensive assessment on the ecological stress of rapid land urbanization per proportion, intensity, and location

Aiming at assessing the ecological stress of land urbanization comprehensively, three perspectives are considered and combined, i.e. the amount effect with the proportion of construction lands as the indicator, the intensity effect per the density of environmental pollutant emissions, and the location effect based on their spatial distribution in the heterogeneous landscape. The quantitative results of Southern Jiangsu case in Eastern China show the single-perspective ecological stress are spatially different; the proportion effect is higher in city propers which are more densely populated and industrialized. However, the intensity effect is more significant for units along the Yangtze river where heavy industries are gathered, while the location effect is higher in “ecologically suitable” regions. As the integration of proportion, intensity, and location effects, the comprehensive stress differs across Southern Jiangsu and are also different with the single-perspective results. Dominant stressors of each unit are spatially distinct, which benefits policy-makers in targeting their objectives as per primary influencing factors. It is concluded that the comprehensive assessment could efficiently reveal the spatial differentiation of the ecological effects of land urbanization and also the differentiated role of different factors for each unit.