Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Mechanisms of Land Use in Basin-Type Coastal Cities During Urbanization: A Case Study of Fuzhou

Spatial differentiation of urban natural basement conditions leads to significant differences in urbanization development patterns and land evolution patterns in different regions. Taking Fuzhou, a typical coastal basin city located in the Minjiang River Estuary, as the study area, this paper analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution characteristics of land use/cover change (LUCC) and quantifies its driving mechanism from 1990 to 2020, by using the land use transition matrix (LUTM), the center-of-gravity model (CGM), the standard deviation ellipse (SDE), and the optimal parameters-based geographical detector (OPGD). The results show that (1) the land use structure has undergone drastic restructuring, the built-up land has increased significantly, the grassland has decreased significantly, and the cropland and forest land have shown phased evolution characteristics: a light increase from 1990 to 2000 and a continuous decline from 2000 to 2020. Water exhibited a fluctuating pattern: shrinking from 1990 to 2000, expanding from 2000 to 2010, and shrinking again from 2010 to 2020. (2) Constrained by the terrain of the Minjiang Estuary Basin, the gravity centers of cropland and grassland shifted northwestward, forest land moved southeastward, water shifted northeastward, and built-up land expanded northward. (3) Driving factors exhibited stagewise differences: socioeconomic factors played a dominant role from 1990 to 2000, with population density (q = 0.4029) and nighttime light (q = 0.3639) being significantly higher than other factors. From 2000 to 2010, the terrain constraint effect continued to intensify, with GDP (q = 0.4470), nighttime light (q = 0.3658) and DEM (q = 0.3638) as the dominant factors. From 2010 to 2020, urban land pattern evolution was jointly driven by multiple factors. This study clarifies the land use evolution mechanism of coastal basin cities during urbanization, providing a scientific reference for the sustainable development of similar coastal basin cities.