Spatiotemporal assessment of human settlement quality index in the Huizhou cultural ecological conservation area

Huizhou is a region that epitomizes classical Chinese culture. The Huizhou Cultural Ecological Conservation Area holds significant practical and theoretical value in assessing the Human Settlement Quality Index (HSQI). Based on data from 2013 to 2024, this study employs the HSQI to construct an evaluation framework. By combining the entropy based TOPSIS method with ArcGIS software, this study examined the spatiotemporal evolution of the HSQI within the study area and the differences among counties. The results indicate that between 2013 and 2024, the HSQI in the study area generally followed a pattern of “decline, increase, and stabilization.” The core area and high-scoring counties continued to improve, while the pace of improvement in the peripheral areas was relatively slow. The GRA results show that production, living, and ecological indicators exhibit differentiated degrees of consistency with HSQI variation, and these relational patterns vary across counties with different development conditions. There are significant spatial disparities in the HSQI across counties; counties with high scores maintain a steady lead, while improvements in counties with low scores are limited, with the gap initially widening before eventually narrowing.