landscape ecological risk, urbanization, Tapio decoupling model, spatial autocorrelation analysis, standard deviation ellipse, Environmental sciences, GE1-350

Cities along the lower reaches of the Yangtze River (CLRYR) have highlighted human-land conflicts with their rapid urban expansion. Fully assessing the landscape ecological risk (LER) of the region and its response in the context of urbanization is of great significance for regional sustainable development. To address this issue, this study explores the spatiotemporal evolution of LER in CLRYR from the perspective of “production-living-ecological” space (PLES), and evaluates the decoupling status of urbanization processes and LER in different cities, aiming to provide scientific reference for policymakers. The results indicate that the mean LER value increased from 0.2508 in 2000 to 0.2573 in 2020, with an increase in LER fluctuations. From a spatial distribution perspective, the proportion of medium risk is the highest, consistently above 30%; The lowest risk proportion is less than 3%. From 2000 to 2020, the Moran’s I values for LER in the CLRYR were 0.4773, 0.4014, 0.3326, 0.2462, and 0.4779, respectively, indicating a significant positive correlation. Through decoupling model analysis, it was found that only Wuxi, Suzhou, and Changzhou achieved strong decoupling between economic growth and LER between 2010 and 2020. The findings of this study provide an important scientific basis for a deeper understanding of the complex relationship between urbanization and ecological risks in CLRYR and also lay a theoretical foundation for promoting the implementation of green development strategies in the region.