## 5 Discussion
### Spatiotemporal Mismatch Patterns of HF and EQ in China's Lake-Ring Urban Agglomerations  
CCD serves as a key indicator for assessing the interactive relationship between human activities and the ecological environment [46]. In lake-dense regions, the relationship between urban development and ecological regulation functions is complex and nuanced [47]. Although the HF and EQ patterns in China's lake-ring urban agglomerations are complementary, their CCD indicates significant mismatches in the human-environment system across spatiotemporal dimensions. The results of Section 4.2.1 showed that from 2000 to 2020, CCD levels in China's lake-ring urban agglomerations gradually improved. The proportion of high-CCD areas significantly increased, especially in eastern urban agglomerations such as CHU, HZU, and THU. However, the spatial pattern of the human-environment system continued to exhibit considerable mismatches. For instance, in western DTU and PYU, low-disturbance forest areas maintained good EQ but had low CCD due to insufficient HF. Despite having high HF levels, some urban core areas struggled to achieve high coordination due to ecosystem degradation. A similar phenomenon was also reported in the study by [PERSON] et al. [48].  
The above spatiotemporal mismatch pattern indicates that HF and EQ do not simply correlate positively. The strength of HF does not determine the quality of EQ; the key lies in their coordinated development. This finding aligns with the study by [PERSON] in the Yangtze River Delta Urban Agglomeration, which suggested that rational development can achieve a high coordination level on the urban periphery [49]. However, this study further indicates that the spatial context of water-land interlacing in lake-ring urban agglomerations makes coordinated improvement more reliant on land function restructuring and use transformation. For example, the cropland-forest buffer zones on the outskirts of CHU and HZU gradually transitioned from Level IV to Level V, forming a typical \"belt-shaped high coordination zone.\" This indicates that agricultural-dominated areas can transform from ecological deficit to ecological surplus through landscape optimization and ecological farmland construction. This trend has also been validated by [PERSON] [50].  
The spatial mismatch between HF and EQ mainly stems from three mechanisms. First, the imbalance in urban functional layout causes high-intensity human activity areas to overlap with ecologically sensitive zones spatially. For example, the edges of transportation corridors in THU and CHU form low-CCD zones of \"high HF-low EQ\" by compressing ecological spaces. Second, areas with favorable ecological conditions but lacking proper guidance form low-CCD zones characterized by \"high EQ-low HF.\". Typical areas include the forest edges of DTU and PYU. Third, policy coordination issues and other institutional factors lead to regional differences in the integration level of human-environment systems. This further exacerbates the spatial inequality of CCD. Moreover, [PERSON] pointed out that ecological vulnerability in watershed areas is more likely to amplify mismatch effects [51]. These mechanisms collectively drive the persistent mismatch between HF and EQ. Improving the CCD of lake-ring urban agglomerations in the future requires coordinated regulation of development intensity, ecological foundations, and governance strategies.