Abstract:

Urban greening has emerged as a major priority of urban development.It is a significant step in the process of realizing a sustainable urban civilization with ecological livability.Our research aimed to examine the current level of urban greening in China and provide scientific support for designing and constructing highquality urban green spaces.We analyzed the spatiotemporal differentiation of urban greening,and the factors that influence it,by determining of coefficients of variation,Thile indices,EDSA,and geographical detectors.Our findings revealed that China’s urban greening index was growing in fluctuations and showing stagechange characteristics: its growth rate increased to 6.73% in the study period of 2000-2017.While eastern China has consistently led the way in terms of urban greening,we found that the urban greening index of western China increased significantly,and this region surpassed the greening index of central China.China’s overall inequality and regional disparity in terms of urban greening declined during the study period.The coefficient of variation decreased from 0.354 to 0.256,which reflected a reduction in the overall urban greening gap.The Theil index decreased from 0.132 to 0.071,the interregional inequality tended to expand,and the intraregional inequality tended to narrow.These all reinforce the finding that the inter and intraregional inequalities were shrinking.Meanwhile,intraregional inequality was the main contributor to overall inequality.The spatial distribution of urban greening changed greatly dramatically 2000 and 2017.High-level greening cities were mainly distributed in the eastern coastal areas of the Yangtze River Delta,Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei,and the Pearl River Delta; while low-level greening cities were clustered in Yunnan,Guizhou,and Gansu.General speaking,highlevel greening cities were mainly located along the eastern coast,while areas with lowlevel greening were almost in line with plateau and mountain.The values of Moran’s I for our dataset were greater than zero and the rangeability was small.The changes in the values illustrated that the urban greening level had positive correlation agglomeration characteristics in its spatial distribution.The spatial relationship of urban greening followed a trend of stabilization.Regions with large-scale and stable hotspots formed in the east,with a local hotspot and a large-scale and stable cold point formed in the west.These changes showed that the greening level increased from coastal to inland more significant than gradually decreased from east to west in China.Finally,natural factors,such as precipitation,were a foundational influence on urban greening level.Economic development and government management were key metrics at different stages,and each was a driving factor that promoted the spatial evolution of urban greening in its respective period.

Key words: rban greening level')">

rban greening level, spatialtemporal evolution, influence factor, China