Understanding land-use change and landscape-pattern responses in large river basins is important for spatial optimization and ecological-security maintenance. Previous studies have often examined land-use dynamics or landscape-pattern change separately, leaving limited evidence on their coupled structural relationships and on how future land-use configurations may diverge under alternative policy scenarios. To address this gap, this study examines the Yangtze-Yellow River basins using multi-temporal land-use data from 2000 to 2020. By combining land-use transition analysis, dynamic-degree analysis, centroid-migration analysis, landscape metrics and the Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) model, we construct an analytical framework that links historical land-use restructuring, landscape-pattern response and multi-scenario simulation. The results show that land-use change from 2000 to 2020 was dominated by bidirectional conversion among cropland, forest and grassland, together with continued built-up land expansion. Forest and built-up land increased by 12,886 km2 and 19,085 km2, respectively, whereas cropland and unused land decreased by 35,468 km2 and 18,145 km2, indicating clear structural adjustment and regional differentiation. Landscape metrics further indicate that land-use restructuring was accompanied by increasing fragmentation and heterogeneity: the number of patches (NP) increased from 170,699 to 178,701, Shannon’s diversity index (SHDI) rose from 1.4025 to 1.4272, and contagion (CONTAG) declined from 32.2854 to 31.0796. The 2030 simulations reveal distinct scenario trade-offs. Under the natural development scenario, cropland decreases by 9653 km2 and built-up land expands by 9778 km2, suggesting continued pressure from construction-space expansion. Under the cropland-protection scenario, cropland increases by 4063 km2, but grassland decreases by 5868 km2, indicating that cropland retention may partly transfer pressure to ecological land. Under the sustainable development scenario, cropland loss is reduced to 5244 km2, forest increases by 5547 km2, grassland shifts to a slight increase of 422 km2, and built-up expansion slows to 7731 km2, suggesting a more balanced pathway for coordinating built-up land control, ecological continuity and land-use structure optimization. Overall, these findings offer a quantitative reference for coordinating territorial spatial planning, land-resource allocation and ecological-security maintenance in the Yangtze-Yellow River basins.
Rao et al. (Sat,) studied this question.