Climate Change-Driven Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Landscape Ecological in the Qinling Mountains (1980–2023)

This pioneering study examined the complex interplay between climate changes and landscape ecological dynamics through a spatiotemporal analysis (1980–2023) of China’s climatically vulnerable Qinling Mountains. The results revealed significant trends in landscape indices, indicating the ecosystem sensitivity of the Qinling Mountains to climate change. The analysis revealed temperature and precipitation as the primary climatic drivers differentially affecting land cover systems. Qinling’s thermal regime has undergone progressive intensification under anthropogenic warming, contrasting with precipitation’s nonlinear variability marked by decadal oscillations. Persistent warming trajectories align with observed vegetation shifts toward higher elevations and latitudes. Landscape metrics demonstrated scale-dependent climate synchronization, achieving full coherence at the macroscale and partial alignment across ecosystem-specific configurations. These multiscale interactions delineate a dual mechanism where climate directly reshapes landscape ecological patterns while modulating human–environment feedback loops.