Background With the rapid development of social economy, human's wrong behavior in the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River has seriously negatively affected the high-quality development of the river basin and restricted the local people to get rid of poverty. Yanchi county of Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region is located in the Yellow River basin typical agricultural and pastoral ecotone. Therefore, to discuss the coupling relationship between land use changes and its eco-environmental effects in Yanchi county not only will be quite helpful for the scientific decision-making of correct human behavior but also provide guidance for the ecological protection and high-quality development in the whole Yellow River basin.

Methods In this study, Yanchi county was selected as a case study region, based on the land use data of 3 periods including 2005, 2010 and 2015, respectively, the land use change, ecological environment indexes and landscape indexes of Yanchi county were analyzed deeply through dynamic attitude, transfer matrix and ecological environment quality index.

Results The change rate of comprehensive land use of Yanchi from 2005 to 2010 was 0.205%, and that from 2010 to 2015 was 0.814%. The change rate of comprehensive land use from 2010 to 2015 was 0.609% higher than that of the previous five years. The grassland and unutilized land in Yanchi county decreased from 465 600 hm² to 454 300 hm² with a decrease rate of 2.43% from 2005 to 2015, while arable land, woodland and residential land continuously increased from 11 100 hm² to 22 500 hm² with a growth rate of 102.7%. The area of unutilized land was decreasing, arable land and woodland were increasing. The comprehensive annual change rate of land use type and the comprehensive index of ecological environment continuously increased. During the ten years period, the contribution rate of grassland to the environmental quality has decreased. Landscape diversity showed a continuous growth trend, from 1.087 to 1.138; the dominance index showed a continuous rise trend, from 0.606 to 0.635. The landscape gradually developed to a reasonable direction. The intensity of human interference in the process of landscape evolution is effectively controlled, and the living environment of human settlements is gradually improved, and human protection of the natural environment exceeded its destruction.

Conculsions It could be concluded explicitly, for the same or similar areas as Yanchi in the Yellow River basin, scientific and rational land use should be combined with local development planning, strengthen ecological protection, according to the concentrated development, stable through the land use dynamic change, this research also implicated a successful example to realize the rational utilization of water and soil resources and high quality development synchronously.