## 3 Results
### Prediction of \(ESV\) for the Southern Jiangsu Urban Agglomeration in 2035 Using the PLUS Model  
#### 3.5.1 Forecasted Land Use Areas for Various Scenarios in 2035  
As evidenced by Table 8, under the NDS, there is a declining trend in the areas of farmland, forest land, and grassland, while the areas of water bodies and built-up land are increasing. Specifically, the area of farmland decreases from 15,244.25 km\({}^{2}\) in 2020 to 14,899.91 km\({}^{2}\), a reduction of 344.34 km\({}^{2}\). This indicates that without human intervention measures, urban expansion has the greatest impact on the encroachment of farmland. Forest and grassland areas shrank by 25.91 km\({}^{2}\) and 0.26 km\({}^{2}\), respectively, indicating a trend of ecological land degradation, while built-up land and water body areas expanded by 359.25 km\({}^{2}\) and 11.42 km\({}^{2}\), respectively. This indicates that under this scenario, urban expansion has significantly increased its substitution of ecological land, leading to the compression of ecological space. Among the four simulated scenarios, the NDS predicts the smallest area of farmland, while the FPS predicts the largest, with an increase of 497.42 km\({}^{2}\) compared to 2020. This suggests that appropriate human intervention in the protection of farmland can have a positive effect on the development of agricultural land. Compared to the NDS, the EPS shows a significant increase in the areas of farmland, forest land, and grassland, with increases of 513.79 km\({}^{2}\), 31.51 km\({}^{2}\), and 0.26 km\({}^{2}\), respectively. It shows that under the constraints of ecological protection policies, ecological land has been significantly restored and protected, leading to an improvement in ES functions. Under the CDS, the areas of farmland, forest land, grassland, water bodies, and built-up land all meet the requirements outlined in the \"Jiangsu Provincial Territorial Spatial Plan (2021-2035)\". This scenario, through coordinated development, balances the needs of farmland protection, ecological conservation, and urban development, highlighting the importance of scientific planning. Figure 9 presents the land use distribution maps under four scenario-based simulations. An analysis of the figure indicates that there are no significant changes in the spatial pattern of land use across the four scenarios, suggesting that the simulated land use spatial patterns in this study possess a certain degree of stability, which is conducive to the stability of people's livelihoods and social operations in the study area. Compared to the original land use spatial distribution in 2020, under the  
Figure 8: Bivariate spatial autocorrelation cluster map of LA and ESV. NDS, built-up areas continue to expand outward around the eastern and northwestern original aggregation areas, encroaching upon farmland resources, especially in the areas where urban expansion is most active; this will pose a threat to food production and the sustainability of agriculture. In contrast, under the FPS, there are no significant changes in built-up areas, particularly in the urban fringe regions in the east and west, and farmland has not been significantly converted into built-up land, reflecting the effectiveness of farmland protection policies. Forest land and water bodies have not been significantly encroached upon, but their increase is limited, indicating that the ecological restoration effect is relatively weak. In the EPS, the main ecological areas in the south and west are effectively protected, demonstrating the significant impact of ecological protection policies in limiting the expansion of built-up land. In Figure 9 the expansion trend of built-up land, represented in pink, is clearly restrained, with the speed of urbanization slowing down compared to the NDS scenario. Although farmland resources still experience some reduction, the impact of urban expansion is smaller than in the NDS, and major water bodies such as Lake Tai remain unaffected, highlighting the effectiveness of water ecosystem protection.