The Response of Ecosystem Services to Landscape Pattern Changes in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area from 1996 to 2015

The law governing the temporal and spatial evolution of landscape pattern in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (referred to as the Bay Area) from 1996 to 2015 is analyzed, the value of ecosystem ser-vice in the bay area is evaluated quantitatively, and the response of ecosystem service value to landscape pattern change is discussed, based on the digital elevation data and land cover data and using the methods of ecosystem service value equivalent estimation, landscape pattern index analysis and spatial autocorrelation analysis. The fo-llowing results are obtained. First, the landscape of the Bay Area is dominated by arable land and forest land. Du-ring the 20 years, wetland and urban land increased significantly, with growth rates of 29.88% and 150.06%, respectively. Second, the ecological service value (ESV) of the Bay Area showed a continuous growth from 1996 to 2015, with a high growth rate from 2005 to 2010 and with a total growth of 123.13 billion yuan in the 20 years. Third, distribution of the cold and hot spots of the Bay Area ESV change shows strong regularity of land use transfer. The change of land use in cold spot area is mostly from grassland to construction land or increased wetland, while land use change in hot spot area is mostly from grassland to wetland or water area, and the spatial distribution correlation between them is high. Fourth, the Bay Area ESV is more sensitive to AREA_MN and DIVISION, indicating that the more abundant the landscape type is, the lower the degree of segmentation is and the more beneficial it is to enhance the overall ecosystem service value. Finally, there is no significant spatial correlation between the ESV intensity and the ccomprehensive index of land use degree in the Bay Area. Since 2005, the environment in the Bay Area has gradually improved, accelerating the urban green development process.