2025
Authors:
Shi, K., Wu, Y., Sun, X., Chen, Z., Cui, Y., Song, L., Cao, W., Ma, J., Huang, C., Gao, L., Yu, B., & Bryan, B. A.
Abstract:
The escalating trend of global hillside urban expansion threatens terrestrial biodiversity and undermines global initiatives, including the Sustainable Development Goals and the Global Biodiversity Framework. This study addresses a critical knowledge gap by examining the impacts of hillside urban expansion on terrestrial biodiversity across multiple scales, integrating multi-source high-resolution data with terrestrial vertebrate species datasets. Our results reveal substantial global hillside urban expansion (11.65 Mha) between 2000 and 2020, with 35% occurring within biodiversity hotspots. It encroaches disproportionately on natural habitat compared to urban expansion in flat areas, significantly exacerbating habitat fragmentation. This has far-reaching consequences for terrestrial biodiversity, directly affecting ~70% of globally threatened species and hindering progress towards biodiversity conservation by 2050. Our findings underscore an urgent need for tailored land-use and urban planning strategies that prioritize biodiversity conservation in ecologically sensitive areas. This study lays the groundwork for the development of more sustainable land-use planning, nature conservation and urban development policies.
