Spatio-Temporal Differentiation and Driving Factors of Land Use and Habitat Quality in Lu'an City, China

The spatio-temporal evolution of land use/land cover (LULC) and habitat quality (HQ) is vital to maintaining ecological balance and realizing regional sustainable development. Using the InVEST and CA-Markov model, with the Kendall coefficient as the sensitivity value, LULC and HQ in Lu'an City from 2000 to 2030 are simulated and evaluated. Then, Spearman is used to analyze the correlation between HQ and driving factors. Finally, the influence of policy factors on HQ is discussed. The results show the following: (1) from 2000 to 2030, the LULC of Lu'an is mainly cropland (about 40%) and forest land (about 30%) which are transferred to construction land; (2) the kappa coefficient is 0.9097 (>0.75), indicating that the prediction results are valid; (3) the Spearman coefficient shows that DEM (0.706), SLOPE (0.600), TRI (0.681), and HFI (-0.687) are strongly correlated with HQ, while FVC (0.356) and GDP (-0.368) are weakly correlated with HQ; (4) the main reasons for the decrease in HQ are the increase in construction land area, the decrease in forest area, the vulnerability of artificial forests to threat factors, and their low biodiversity. This study outlines exploratory research from two perspectives of HQ factors and policy effects to provide policy suggestions for the sustainable development of Lu'an City.