Spatiotemporal Heterogeneity of Landscape Patterns and Ecological Risk Under Changing Human Activity in the Qilian...

Human activities and environmental changes can alter landscape patterns and ecological processes, with important implications for ecological risk. Taking the Qilian Mountains as a case study, we used multi-temporal land-use data from 2000 to 2020 to quantify human activity intensity (HAI), landscape patterns and landscape ecological risk (LER). Spatial autocorrelation and geographically weighted regression (GWR) were used to examine spatial associations between HAI and landscape patterns. HAI remained generally low but exhibited pronounced spatial heterogeneity, increasing from west to east and from higher to lower elevations. Landscape patterns were relatively stable overall, despite localized increases in fragmentation and spatial heterogeneity in aggregation and connectivity. Higher HAI was generally associated with greater fragmentation and lower aggregation and connectivity, while GWR revealed pronounced spatial non-stationarity in these relationships. Low- and moderate-low LER levels dominated, whereas moderate- and moderate-high risk patches were concentrated in central-western and high-altitude areas, with risk increasing from southeast to northwest. The spatial relationships between HAI and LER in some high-altitude areas indicate that ecological risk does not always correspond to the spatial distribution of human activity, highlighting the spatial complexity of ecological risk in the Qilian Mountains.