Remote Sensing-Based LULP Change and Its Effect on Ecological Quality in the Context of the Hainan Free Trade Port Plan

The study of Land Use and Landscape Patterns (LULPs) changes and their ecological quality effects in Haikou city under the background of the Hainan Free Trade Port Plan (HFTPP) helps to promote coordinated development between cities and the environment. To date, most research on ecological quality has focused on areas with extremely fragile ecology and/or is related to LULP analysis. There are few studies in the literature focusing on the impact of high-intensity human activities caused by relevant policies on urban LULPs. The purpose of this research was to design a framework that monitors urban ecological security by considering the effect of the developing free trade port. The proposed framework was constructed by integrating multi-temporal Sentinel-2 remote sensing images, night light remote sensing data, digital elevation model (DEM) data, and spectral index features such as the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), enhanced vegetation index (EVI), bare soil index (BSI), and normalized intertidal mangrove index (NIMI), as well as analytical approaches such as the land use transfer matrix, land use dynamic degree, land use degree and transfer matrix, land use gravity center measurement, and landscape pattern index. The framework takes advantage of the Google Earth Engine (GEE) cloud platform and was applied to a highly developed Haikou city, the capital of Hainan province. Maps of brightness (SBI), greenness (GVI), and humidity (WET) were created annually from 2016 to 2021, enabling detailed ecological environment quality evaluation and analysis. The advantages of this study are (1) reliable land cover results obtained automatically and quickly; (2) the strong objectivity of the quantitative research on landscape patterns and land use; and (3) deep integration with free trade port policies. Through the research on the ecological quality problems caused by the change in LULP in the study area, the research results show that, from 2016 to 2021, the spatial distribution of land use and landscape pattern in Haikou city had been constantly changing; the area of construction land has decreased, with most of it having been converted into forest land and farmland; the gravity center of the building land has moved to the northwest; the degree of landscape fragmentation has decreased and the heterogeneity of landscape distribution has increased; the free trade port policies have promoted Haikou’s economic development and ecological civilization construction; and finally, Haikou’s ecological environmental quality has improved significantly.