Implications of Riparian Landscape Change for Ecosystem Service Capacity in Peri-Urban Floodplains: A Case Study of Shanghai

Riparian landscapes in peri-urban floodplains are important components of urban green infrastructure, but urbanization is eroding their capacity to support ecosystem services. This study examined the implications of riparian landscape change for ecosystem service capacity and developed spatially explicit recommendations to inform land use planning in Shanghai’s peri-urban fringe. A multi-scale landscape metric-based proxy assessment was applied to characterize changes in landscape composition and configuration at the regional and riparian buffer scales. From 2000 to 2020, the study area underwent pronounced land use change: the dominant land use type shifted from agricultural land (59.16%) to built-up land (67.69%), while 28% of water area and 57% of vegetated land were converted to other uses. Landscape metrics indicated a systemic shift toward fragmentation, characterized by higher patch density, smaller mean patch size, lower largest-patch and Contagion Indices, and simpler patch geometries. Changes within riparian buffers further indicated an overall decline in the potential capacity to provide provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services. By integrating landscape composition and configuration across spatial scales, the proposed framework links regional land use control with site-scale riparian design and provides an adaptable basis for sustaining ecosystem services in rapidly urbanizing floodplain and deltaic cities.