Ecological environment assessment of Shanxi Province and planned mining area based on coupling Remote Sensing Ecological Index (RSEI) model

Ecological environment quality is an important indicator to evaluate the livability, and quantitative assessment on the change rule of regional ecological environment quality could provide scientific basis for the regional ecological environment protection and governance. Taking Shanxi Province and its planned mining area as the research area, the original Remote Sensing Ecology Index (RSEI) is added with Net Primary Productivity (NPP) and Habitat Quality (HQ) to characterize the carbon sink level and habitat suitability respectively based on Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Herein, three representative years from 2000 to 2018 were selected for analysis. Specifically, the temporal and spatial heterogeneity of ecological environment quality in Shanxi Province was evaluated by building a new remote sensing ecological index model (NH-RSEI) based on coupling NPP, HQ and RSEI. Meanwhile, the environmental change in the planned mining area was analyzed by combining the buffer analysis method and driving force analysis method. The research shows that the overall ecological level of Shanxi Province from 2000 to 2018 was at the lower middle level with less improvement than the mining area. The ecology of the mining area in the east of Shanxi Province is above the middle level and relatively stable, while that in the west of Shanxi Province is poor with obvious improvement. In addition, the mining area has great impact on the ecological environment quality of the buffer zone within the radius of about 6 km, and the impact is superimposed on the overlapped buffer zone, which is gradually decreasing over time. The mean value of NH-RSEI has a strong correlation with elevation and slope, and has obvious characteristics of phased changes, which are the key factors affecting the distribution of NH-RSEI. Generally, this study provides a reliable way to assess the ecological environment quality in large scale and long sequence. Therefore, it is of great significance to the ecological restoration and sustainable development management of Shanxi Province and its planned mining areas.