Multi-Source Ecological Risk Formation in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area: An H–V–E Assessment for Agricultural and Ecological-Space Management

Rapid urbanization intensifies the overlap between natural hazards and persistent land-use disturbance in coastal agricultural landscapes, yet how these pressures jointly shape ecological risk remains unclear. In the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA), we applied a hazard–vulnerability–ecological asset exposure (H–V–E) framework using 2000–2020 data and 5 km gridded assessment units, integrating rainstorm-induced flooding, tropical cyclones, human-induced landscape disturbance, and ecological–environmental and socioeconomic vulnerability. The framework uses ecosystem service value (ESV) as a proxy for ecological assets potentially exposed to loss and identifies eight H–V–E configurations to interpret risk patterns. Rainstorm-induced flooding formed localized hotspots along the central coast and western Pearl River Estuary, whereas tropical cyclone hazard showed a broader southern concentration. Mean landscape ecological risk changed little, but high-risk clusters intensified. ESV declined from CNY 279.12 billion to 262.72 billion over 2000–2020 and remained highest in peripheral forested and agricultural areas. Moderate-to-high integrated ecological risk covered 47.5% of the region. The low H–low V–high E configuration occupied the largest share (30.4%). These findings support differentiated management of cropland and surrounding ecological spaces through hazard mitigation, resilience enhancement, fragmentation control, and ecological asset protection.