Spatial change and scale dependence of built-up land expansion and landscape pattern evolution—Case study of affected area of the lower Yellow River

Land use change are essential for sustaining human wellbeing, but empirical studies have shown that the urban development requires built-up land, yet, the disorderly expansion of built-up land poses a threat to sustaining the stability of landscape patterns. Reconciling these seemingly conflicting results requires better understanding how the built-up land expansion and the landscape patterns change relationship varies with space and scales. Here we systematically analyzed the landscape pattern and expansion mode of built-up land in the affected area of the Lower Yellow River on three spatial scales (i.e., 5 km, 10 km, 15 km), using landscape pattern analysis, the landscape expansion index and the Multiscale Geographically Weighted Regression (MGWR) model. Our results indicated that: (1) infilling has been the dominant mode of built-up land expansion, and the spreading tendency become more obvious with a decrease in scale; (2) Rapid expansion of built-up land had led to the significant spatial differences in landscape fragmentation and agglomeration at different scales and the complexity of the landscape shape gradually increased; (3) the MGWR model can explain the relationship between the built-up land expansion and landscape pattern more than the Ordinary Least Squares model (OLS), and shows that the dependence of the two is increasing with the increase of scale, Further, the effect of control variables on the landscape pattern evolution differed. This study provides a valuable reference for sustainable development in other large river basins experiencing similar ecological landscape pattern changes (landscape elements, spatial locations and connections that are critical to the health and security of ecological processes).