Trade-offs and driving forces of land use functions in ecologically fragile areas of northern Hebei Province: Spatiotemporal analysis

Climate change, urbanization, and industrialization have caused severe conflicts in land use functions (LUFs) in Chinese ecologically fragile areas. The coordination of LUFs is of great significance to optimize national territory space. This study proposes an index system to assess LUFs and their conflict/coordination relationship at the grid-scale based on multi-source data characterizing land-use, geography and socio-economy. The geographic detector model is used to identify the driving forces associated with LUFs changes. Zhangjiakou City, a typical ecologically fragile area in North China, is selected as an empirical study area. The results show that during 1990–2015, land-use economic, social, and ecological functions greatly enhanced, especially the social function. Additionally, LUFs are spatially heterogeneous and clustered due to the terrain and socio-economic conditions. Among three LUFs, Land-use economic and social functions primarily display coordination. Land-use ecological and economic functions, as well as ecological and social functions, are coordinated in mountainous and hilly areas, while are conflicted in the Yang River valley. The driving mechanisms of multiple LUFs originate from spatially different coupling of natural conditions and anthropic activities, but economic development and social life are primarily responsible for LUFs changes. Policymakers are suggested to optimize ecological–living–production spaces by coordinating LUFs. Thus, this study can help mitigate LUFs conflicts and further improve the harmonization of ecological–living–production spaces.