Landscape ecological risks assessment of the China-Vietnam border area: the perspective of production-living-ecological spaces

The China-Vietnam border plays a crucial role as a vital ecological barrier in China, and along with the development of the border, the pattern of production-living-ecological (PLE) spaces has been significantly affected by human activities. Therefore, the resulting landscape ecological risk is worthy of attention. Based on the perspective of PLE spaces, the paper employs transfer matrices, landscape ecological risk evaluation model, and spatial models to examine the evolution of land space and landscape ecological risk over the past 40 years along the China-Vietnam border. The findings are as follows: (1) agricultural production space is shrinking by 49.82 km², and the problem of arable land non-agriculturalization is escalating. Meanwhile, industrial and mining production space has witnessed considerable expansion of 94.38 km². Similarly, urban living space experienced an increase of 52.91 km². Although rural living space initially contracted, it later experienced rapid growth, surpassing urban living space. In 2020, rural living space is 2.3 times larger than urban living space. Woodland ecological space has slightly expanded but subsequently contracted. Grassland ecological space reduced by 44.20 km², while watershed ecological space expanded significantly by 88.42 km². Other ecological space decreased sharply by 807.84 km². (2) Both ecological protection and destruction behaviors are observed in the study area. Landscape ecological risk (LER) is increasing. Moving from west to east, the LER index consistently rises. (3) LER in the study area exhibits a significant spatial aggregation. High-high (H–H) areas are predominantly concentrated in the mineral resource-rich regions and coastal tourism zones of the central-eastern region, while low-low (L-L) areas are primarily distributed in border villages and cottages. Based on our findings, we can conclude that human activities in the study area have resulted in the transformation of PLE spaces, leading to a deterioration in the quality of the ecological environment. To address this issue, it is essential to strengthen the construction of ecological civilization and improve the ecological compensation mechanism.