Open Access

ARTICLE

Urbanization-Driven Indirect Effects on Vegetation: Spatial Heterogeneity and Long- and Short-Run Dynamics in Nanjing

Xiankai Ji^1,2, Manchun Li^1,2,*, Nan Xia^1,2,3

1 Department of Geographic Information Science, School of Geography and Ocean Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
2 Jiangsu Provincial Key Laboratory of Geographic Information Science and Technology, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China
3 Collaborative Innovation Center for the South Sea Studies, Nanjing University, Nanjing, China

* Corresponding Author: Manchun Li. Email:

(This article belongs to the Special Issue: Resource and Environmental Information Modeling - 2nd Edition)

Revue Internationale de Géomatique 2026, 35, 315-332. https://doi.org/10.32604/rig.2026.084921

Received 01 May 2026; Accepted 25 May 2026; Issue published 11 June 2026

Abstract

Against the backdrop of rapid global urbanization, revealing the indirect ecological effects triggered by urban environmental restructuring and human management interventions carries early-warning significance for preventing cliff-like vegetation degradation driven by unchecked urban expansion. Existing studies predominantly rely on linear assumptions and neglect the temporal lags inherent in ecological responses, making it difficult to capture the long-run and short-run dynamics as well as potential nonlinear thresholds of indirect impacts. Using Nanjing as the study region, this research constructs a spatiotemporal panel dataset at 1 km × 1 km resolution based on multi-source remote sensing data from 2001–2018. Building upon the quantification of urbanization’s indirect effects on vegetation, we introduce a panel CS-ARDL model (Cross-Sectionally Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag model) to decompose short-run dynamic shocks from long-run equilibrium effects. Results reveal that urban construction land continues to expand along the Yangtze River axis, forming a “core–corridor–cluster” spatial pattern. Concurrently, vegetation indirect effects display pronounced north–south spatial differentiation: the Yangtze River’s north bank (exemplified by Luhe District) exhibits clustering of negative indirect effects, whereas the core urban area south of the Yangtze generally exhibits positive responses, accompanied by a synchronized evolution from “negative–weakly negative–shifting toward positive” across the study period. ARDL (Augmented Autoregressive Distributed Lag model) results further demonstrate that the short-run scale exhibits stronger spatial heterogeneity and volatility. At the long-run scale, urbanization’s indirect effects on vegetation are predominantly positive, displaying a declining gradient of “core urban areas > suburban areas > rural areas”; however, significant clusters of negative long-run effects persist in both core urban zones and far-suburban expansion edges.

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