Land Use Change and Its Impact on the Quality of the Ecological Environment in Xinjiang

Abstract

Xinjiang is a key area for implementing the Belt and Road Initiative, as well as an ecological security barrier in Northwest China. In this study, the remote sensing ecological index (RSEI) was constructed on the basis of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform combined with multiperiod (MODIS) remote sensing imagery to analyze the land use changes in Xinjiang and their impacts on the ecological and environmental quality from 2000 to 2023. The results are as follows. (1) The areas of land use changes in Xinjiang are concentrated mainly in the oasis areas around the mountain ranges and the Tarim Basin. (2) The quality of the overall ecological environment of Xinjiang showed an insignificant linear decreasing trend, with an annual rate of change of −0.0009 a−1 (p > 0.05). (3) The spatial distribution of the RSEI in Xinjiang revealed a significant positive spatial correlation and clustering pattern, which was high in the west and low in the east. (4) The increase in the cultivated land area had a positive effect on improving the quality of the ecological environment in Xinjiang. When the cultivated land area increased by 10%, the area of improvement in the quality of the ecological environment increased by 8.8%.