Abstract: Rapid socioeconomic development has greatly altered regional land use patterns, habitat quality, and biodiversity. Accurately assessing and predicting spatiotemporal variations and future development trends of habitat quality is therefore essential for regional biodiversity protection and sustainability. Based on land use data of 2000, 2010, and 2018, we analyzed spatiotemporal variations of land use and habitat quality in the Daning River Basin of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area. We further simulated the patterns of land use and habitat quality in 2034 under three scenarios (natural development, economic priority, and ecology protection) by applying a land use simulation model. The results showed that the area of paddy field, dryland, and grassland had decreased from 2000 to 2018, while that of forest, urban land, rural residential area, and other construction land displayed an increasing trend, indicating a pattern of land use change with the coexistence of urban construction and ecological restoration. Habitat quality showed a trend of decreasing first and then increasing. The entire pattern was relatively stable from 2000 to 2018, but habitat quality for the local areas tended to be decreased and a polarization trend was obvious. In the future scenarios, habitat quality in 2034 would vary in the following order: ecology protection>natural development>economic priority. In the ecology protection scenario, both the local and entire habitat quality would be significantly improved. Thus, future biodiversity protection and regional sustainability planning should pay more attention to coordinating the relationship between economic development and ecological protection.

Key words: Land use, habitat quality, InVEST model, PLUS model, scenario simulation.