Land Use Change and Sustainable Urban Transition Under Multi-Scenario Simulation: Policy Insights from Beijing’s Ecological Conservation Area

Rapid urbanization and mega-events have reshaped land use in Beijing’s Yanqing District, making post-event balance between ecological protection and urban development a critical challenge for territorial spatial planning. This study analyzes land use evolution from 2015 to 2025, simulates 2035 patterns under natural development (ND), ecological protection (EP), and urban development (UD) using the PLUS model (Kappa = 0.91, OA = 0.95), and constructs an Ecological Conversion Direction Index (ECDI) to characterize the net direction of ecological quality change. Results show forest and construction land increased (+40.17 km2; +14.83 km2), grassland declined sharply (−38.23 km2, −36.47%), cropland decreased (−25.36 km2, −5.17%), and water expanded (+8.59 km2, +62.38%). The ECDI remained positive (0.313 to 0.178) but weakened post-event. The driving mechanism showed a trend of transition from “event-response” toward “ecological constraint”—the contribution of distance to landmarks/venues declined substantially for most land types, while NDVI emerged as a prominent predictor negatively associated with construction land (18.24%) and positively associated with forest quality improvement (17.55%). The EP scenario was identified as optimal, reducing construction land by 8.05 km2 to 98.67 km2 while increasing forest to 1388.57 km2, effectively safeguarding both the ecological baseline and cropland redline. We recommend adopting EP, strengthening the construction land reclamation rate, and coordinating the three control lines. These findings provide evidence-based policy support for reconciling urban development with ecological conservation in rapidly urbanizing ecological protection areas.