An Examination of Land Cover Transformation and Temporal Trends of the Ecological Environment in the Jingmai Mountain Cultural Landscape Heritage Area

Monitoring heritage landscapes is essential for evaluating long-term ecological integrity, mitigating environmental risks, and supporting sustainable heritage management. This study investigates land cover transformation and ecological environment quality in the Jingmai Mountain Cultural Landscape Heritage Area, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, using high-resolution satellite imagery from 2013 and 2023 and geospatial analysis tools (ENVI 5.3 and ArcGIS 10.8). Supervised classification using the maximum likelihood algorithm was employed to detect land use and land cover changes, and a quantitative ecological environment quality index based on land use areas and ecological coefficients was used to assess regional ecological quality. Land cover dynamics, heritage element shifts, and ecological quality variations before and after the site’s inscription were analyzed. The results indicate that core landscape structures remained relatively stable in both the construction control area and the core application zone. In the construction control area, land cover changes totaled 32.28 km2, with the most significant transformations occurring in forested areas (36%), followed by cultivated lands (19%). In the application zone, total land cover change reached 10.99 km2, primarily involving cultivated lands (33%) and built-up areas (27%). Ecological environment quality indices exhibited a slight positive trend, increasing from 0.4476 to 0.4512 in the construction control area and from 0.2449 to 0.2521 in the application zone between 2013 and 2023. This study provides a decade-long spatial assessment of land use transitions in a UNESCO cultural landscape and proposes a transferable framework for integrating ecological quality evaluation into heritage landscape monitoring. The findings offer evidence-based insights into heritage conservation and rural development planning and support the implementation of sustainable landscape management strategies aligned with national policies and the Sustainable Development Goals.