[Figure 11]
The dominant drivers of urbanization and terrestrial ecosystem health
changes differentiated among regions, and most of the indices for 7
sub-regions passed the internal examinations of the PLS-SEM model (Table
8 and Table S11). Social and economic factors played a positive role in
regional urbanization development, while behaved negative effects on
ecosystem health changes, which were mainly concentrated in all regions
expect for the southwest region (Table 8). All the path coefficients of
climate and topography on EHI were positive, implying the positive
impact of natural factors on ecosystem health. However, their effects on
UI were quite different. Some regions exhibited positive path
coefficients, including east, south, central, and northeast, while
others had negative values. Furthermore, UI had significant positive
effects on EHI in six regions, with east and north exhibited higher
values of 0.64 and 0.93, respectively. However, the effect was -0.4 in
southwest. Additionally, driving factors had indirect effects on EHI.
For instance, social and economic factors were negative indirectly with
EHI via UI in southwest. Climate and topography showed positive indirect
effects on EHI in east, south, northeast and central regions (Table
S12).