Research on Urbanization and Ecological Environmental Response: A Case Study of Zhengzhou City

The relationship between the urbanization process and the ecological environment is key to regional development. As a typical Chinese city undergoing rapid urban development, Zhengzhou is an important representative of the urbanization process and the changes in the ecological environment. In this study, we explored the response relationship between urban development and the ecological environment in Zhengzhou, using night light data, Landsat satellite imagery, and population data from this city. The analysis of the NTL data showed that there were three stages of development in Zhengzhou from 2000 to 2021: the slow expansion stage from 2000 to 2003, the steady expansion stage from 2004 to 2011, and the rapid expansion stage from 2012 to 2021. The multi-year average RSEI value of Zhengzhou was less than 0.4, and it showed a trend of first increasing and then decreasing, indicating that the quality of the city’s ecological environment was poor and indirectly indicating that the urbanization degree of the region was significant. The changes in the NTL and RSEI indicate that urban development has significantly reduced the quality of the city’s ecological environment, particularly after Zhengzhou entered the stage of rapid expansion. The coupling degree (C) and coupling coordination degree (D) between urbanization and the ecological environment showed a decreasing trend, and the average value was lower than 0.3. This indicates that the ecological environment in Zhengzhou has been seriously affected by the process of urbanization, and the natural ecology has been strongly impacted by human activity. C and D also showed a decreasing trend from 2000 to 2015 but increased from 2016 to 2021, indicating that the ecological environment in Zhengzhou has gradually improved. The degree of coordination D between urbanization and the ecological environment in Zhengzhou had a strong negative correlation with the population size and growth rate but a positive correlation with the Moran value, indicating that an increase in the population increases the burden on the ecological environment. However, a reasonable spatial population distribution is conducive to improving regional urban–ecological coordination.