Exploring the impact of human activities on habitat quality to support sustainable zoning management in transboundary basins: Evidence from the Lancang–Mekong River Basin

Abstract

The distinctive geography and climate of the Lancang–Mekong River Basin (LMRB) have promoted rich species diversity, making it one of the world’s most important biodiversity hotspots. However, rapid increases in human activity intensity (HAI) have led to significant habitat loss, posing biodiversity conservation challenges across this transboundary basin. To address this gap, this study explored spatiotemporal variations in HAI and habitat quality (HQ) in the LMRB from 2000 to 2020, analyzed their spatial relationships, and applied the four-quadrant model to delineate four ecological management zones. The empirical results show that HAI in the LMRB increased by 14.15 % over the past 20 years, while HQ declined by 1.84 %. Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia exhibited high HAI over the studied period, while Laos, Myanmar and China maintained high HQ. Bivariate local autocorrelation analysis revealed predominantly “low HAI–high HQ” and “high HAI–low HQ” spatial clustering patterns. The spatial relationship between HAI and HQ showed a significant negative correlation and uneven distribution over the studied period, indicating that increasing human activity has degraded habitats. Using the Geodetector method, land use and land cover, net primary productivity, and temperature were identified as primary HQ change drivers in the LMRB. Additionally, the interactions between factor pairs exerted a significantly stronger influence than individual factors. Overall, this study’s findings offer new insights into biodiversity conservation in the LMRB, and the proposed ecological zoning based on HAI and HQ provides support for habitat protection and sustainable development in this transboundary basin.

Keywords

Habitat quality / Human activities / GWR model / Management zoning / Four-quadrant model

Data availability

All data used in this study are publicly accessible, with acquisition methods detailed in the data section.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Chenli Liu: Writing – original draft, Supervision, Software, Conceptualization. Xingwu Duan: Supervision, Resources, Funding acquisition. Ronghua Zhong: Supervision, Resources, Investigation. Hong Wang: Writing – review & editing, Methodology, Funding acquisition. Bowen Deng: Software, Methodology. Enwei Zhang: Software, Resources.

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by Research Fund of the State Key Laboratory of Vegetation Structure, Function and Construction (VegLab) (Grant No. VegLabOF2025016), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 42301355, U24A20581), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (Grant No. 2023M733012), the Training Program of the Innovation Guidance and Scientific and Technological Enterprise of Yunnan Province (Grant No. 202304BT090019), the Yunnan Fundamental Research Project (Grant No. 202201AT070207), and the Distinguished Young Found Project of Yunnan Province (Grant No. 202201AV070001). We thank Yuanjiang Dry-hot Valley Water and Soil Conservation Observation and Research Station of Yunnan Province for help with field work.

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