Analysis of spatial differentiation of landscape ecological quality and its affecting factors in metropolitan suburbs

Abstract: The spatial stationary data are usually used in most ordinary linear regression analysis, which often has limitation of ignoring the local variations of spatial data. In this paper, in order to evaluation and classification of landscape ecological quality of 184 administrative villages in the western suburbs of Qingpu district in Shanghai City, we constructed evaluation index system of landscape ecological quality. The comprehensive index evaluation method and the equal distance space classification method were used. A new technique called local linear geographically weighted regression model (LLGWR model) was introduced to evaluate the impacts of landscape ecological quality. Comparison was made among ordinary linear regression model (OLS model), geographical weighted regression model (GWR model), and local linear geographically weighted regression model (LLGWR model) for the accuracy of the spatial differences of landscape ecological quality of administrative villages in Qingpu District. The results showed that: the variation range of landscape ecological quality index of administrative villages was 0.03- 5.49 in Qingpu District in the year of 2014. The characteristic of landscape ecological quality in that region was high in the west and low in the east. The relationship between the landscape ecological quality and the influence factors of the eight kinds of pressure types showed the characteristic of local change with the change of the spatial position even with the same factors acted on the landscape ecological quality. Compared among the results of the interpretation of the three models, we concluded that GWR model and LLGWR model were superior to the OLS model in the process of spatial heterogeneity and spatial heterogeneity; LLGWR model was better than the GWR model in dealing with the problem of "boundary fuzzy" which was caused by "boundary effect". In addition, village domain changes of landscape ecological quality had differences in space and scale sensitivity. Landscape and ecological quality changes were positively related to the factors such as amount of farmland per capita, Engel coefficient, and urbanization rate. The changes of landscape ecological quality was negative related factors such as demographic dependency ratio, second industry accounted for GDP ratio, population density, settlement and farmland ratio, and distance to the nearest township. Our results have important guidance function to sustainable development of landscape ecosystem and the spatial land consolidation in Metropolitan Suburbs.