5.Conclusion

The urbanization index and four subsystems revealed an upward trend at the national scale, with significant growth in major urban agglomerations (i.e., BTH, YRD, PRD) and provincial capitals. At the regional scale, areas with higher urbanization index mainly concentrated in east, central and north, while the northwest and southeast presented lower urbanization levels. Ecosystem vigor and EHI increased from 2000 to 2020, while the ecosystem organization and resilience revealed a negative growth. Moreover, the region east of the Hu Line demonstrated higher ecosystem health, vigor and resilience, while regional ecosystem organization values were higher in the west. In addition, the bivariate spatial autocorrelation results indicated that UI and EHI were negatively correlated. Terrestrial ecosystem health was influenced by the negative externalities of spatial spillover effects of urbanization in neighboring regions. According to the PLS-SEM modeling results, anthropogenic drivers (i.e., social and economic factors) were the main factors that promoted urbanization and damaged terrestrial ecosystem health. Natural factors (i.e., climate and topography factors) contributed to terrestrial ecosystem health and climate displayed negative effects on urbanization. Additionally, urbanization promoted terrestrial ecosystem health at the national scale, enhanced by social, economic and topographical factors. All regions, apart from the southwest, exhibited positive path coefficients of UI on EHI. Our results indicated that the positive effect of urbanization on terrestrial ecosystem health has appeared. For the harmonious and sustainable development of urbanization and terrestrial ecosystem health, the government should accelerate regional integration, replace resource consumption with technological innovation, and strengthen ecological protection and restoration.