Exploring the impacts of urbanization on vegetation growth from the perspective of urban expansion patterns and maturity: A case study on 40 large cities in China.

• Effects of urbanization expansion and maturity on vegetation growth are investigated. • Looser urban expansion patterns help offset direct vegetation loss. • Laggard cities effectively offset direct vegetation loss. • Urban maturity level has a higher driving effect on urban ecological offset effect. • Indirect impact of urbanization can offset direct negative on vegetation. Rapid urbanization replaces vegetation with build-up land, which threatens green spaces and the well-being of residents. In this study, the urban expansion patterns (UEPs) of build-up land from 2000 to 2020 were identified for 40 typical large cities in China, and their urban maturity (UM) was quantified. The different UEPs and UM types were used to analyze the comprehensive impacts of different types of cities on vegetation growth at different urbanization expansion intensity gradients. Finally, the relationship between different driving forces and the urban ecological effects was explored. The results showed that mature cities and the infilling cities experienced vegetation loss while other UEPs and UM levels resulted in increased vegetation growth. In particular, laggard cities and looser UEPs were able to effectively offset the direct vegetation loss caused by urbanization. The UM level had a high driving effect on the urban ecological offset. In the future, the scale and speed of urbanization can be optimized to reasonable levels and the urban ecological restoration should be strengthened to meet the needs of ecological security. This study contributes to explore the effectiveness of the urbanization process and land management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]