Ecological quality assessment of Xiongan New Area based on remote sensing ecological index.

The continuous urbanization leads to increasing pressure on the ecological environment. It is a key point to measure regional ecological environment quality objectively, accurately and quickly from multiple directions in ecological research. In this study, the normalized vegetation index ( NDVI), wet index ( WET), land surface temperature ( LST), and normalized difference building-soil index (NDBSI) were extracted from the aspects of greenness, humidity, heat and dryness. The ecological quality of Xiongan New Area between 1995 and 2015 was evaluated by integrating selected indicators to measure the remote sensing ecological index ( RSEI) with principal component analysis technology based on ENVI platform. The results showed that the average RSEI of Xiongan New Area was 0.724, 0.710, and 0.682 in 1995, 2004 and 2015, respectively, showing a downward trend. RSEI mainly changed from 4, 5 to 1, 2 and 3 in the study area from 1995 to 2015. Ecological quality improved and deteriorated area accounted for 8.9% and 20.9% of the total area respectively. The ecological quality improved area was mainly located in the east and south of Xiongxian County, because a large area of forests and gardens was highly valued and strictly protected by the local government. The ecological quality deteriorated area was in the periphery of the town and the surrounding area of Baiyangdian due to the sharp decline of the water area of Baiyang-dian and the continuous urbanization. The three-year average correlation coefficient between RSEI and each component index was 0.80, which was higher than that between other component indices. Our results showed that RSEI could efficiently integrate the information of each component index and comprehensively and accurately reflect the ecological quality of the study area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]