[Remote Sensing Assessment of Ecosystem Health and Its Key Driving Factors： A Case Study of the Urban Agglomeration in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River].

The Yangtze River Middle Reaches Urban Agglomeration， is a crucial city cluster in central China and plays an important role in promoting urban biodiversity conservation and sustainable development through its ecosystem health. Based on multisource remote sensing data， a comprehensive "Vigor-Organization-Resilience" model was used to systematically evaluate urban ecosystem health. Further， the geographic convergence cross-mapping （GCCM） model was employed to identify key driving factors of ecosystem health and reveal the causal relationships between ecosystem health and its drivers. The study showed that： ① Over 20 years， the ecosystem health level of the Yangtze River Middle Reaches Urban Agglomeration improved， increasing from 0.784 in 2010 to 0.801 in 2020. The overall ecosystem health was better in the northeastern and western regions compared to that in the central and southern regions， with notable differentiation. ② Based on the GCCM model， human activities and ecosystem health had a relatively stable mutual influence， while the interaction between the natural environment and ecosystem health was unstable. For human landscape indicators， GDP and POP had consistent interaction directions with EH. For natural landscape indicators， TA， MAP， HLI， NDVI， and NPP had inconsistent interaction directions with EH. ③ The GCCM model ranked the driving forces as follows： normalized vegetation index > GDP > nighttime light index > annual precipitation > average annual temperature > population density > net primary productivity. The normalized vegetation index was the most important driving factor， with GDP， nighttime light index， annual precipitation， and average annual temperature being the main driving factors， while population density and net primary productivity contributed less to ecosystem health. This study analyzes the ecosystem functions and changes in the Yangtze River Middle Reaches Urban Agglomeration， providing a scientific basis for future ecosystem management， and has significant theoretical and practical implications for sustainable urban ecosystem health governance and preventive policy formulation.