Identification of High-Value Land for Green Infrastructure in Urban Fringe Areas: A Case Study of Zhengzhou, Henan Province, China

Urban fringe is the most active and complex space in which land and ecology change under the influence of urban expansion. Green infrastructure (GI) in urban fringe areas consists mostly of diversified, small-scale, and scattered green spaces, which simultaneously fulfill the functions of ecological maintenance and urban–rural services. Assessing GI land's value can promote its effective use. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to determine various GI patches' land value, specifically identifying GI lands with potential for public goods output in the urban fringe, which is oriented toward public welfare output. First, based on a combination of remote sensing technology, big data analysis, and artificial intelligence, we determined that Zhengzhou is divided into core area, edge area, and outer edge area. Second, we found that morphological spatial pattern analysis can accurately identify GI types that play important roles in ecological protection, and the GI lands in the fringe area of Zhengzhou can be characterized as small and fragmented, having poor connectivity, representing a single land type, containing a high proportion of farmland, and a lacking a purely natural landscape. Third, we constructed an evaluation system from ecological maintenance and urban–rural services public goods and identified the high-value GI lands of the edge district of Zhengzhou, including Xianghu Ecological Wetland Park, Die Lake Park, Xiliu Lake Park, Changzhuang Reservoir, Jiangang Reservoir, and greenways along some rivers and roads. Our results highlight the value of microhabitats in the urban fringe and suggest effective ways of protecting and utilizing them, providing a basis for GI network planning and construction and contributing to sustainable urban development.