A 1 km annual dataset (1986–2021) of urban-suburban-rural-natural gradient landscape continuum in Southwest China

The dataset accurately delineates the urban-suburban-rural-natural gradient landscape map in Southwest China, which is crucial for understanding the evolution of gradient landscapes and changes in ecosystems. However, existing global datasets primarily focus on urban areas while neglecting the demarcation of suburban, rural, and natural zones. Therefore, this study developed a novel integrated framework that combines impervious surface and cropland data optimized through the MSPA (Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis) model, creating the first long-term (1986-2021), 1-kilometer resolution continuous gradient landscape dataset of Urban-Suburban-Rural-Natural (USRN) zones. By comparing with global urban datasets derived from nighttime light data and impervious surfaces, the accuracy of USRN was validated, showing overall correlations exceeding 0.8 with other reference datasets and outperforming them in capturing urban and suburban details. The USRN dataset provides gradient landscape information at larger regional scales, extending the traditional urban-rural continuum to a more comprehensive spatial scope encompassing urban-suburban-rural-natural systems. It offers unique insights for landscape planning and serves as critical data support for understanding ecosystem services and advancing sustainability research, addressing key scientific questions in these fields.The format of the data is TIFF, the projected coordinate system is WGS 1984 UTM Zone 48N, and each raster image has 4 cell values, where the pixel value 1 indicates that the cell is a natural area, 2 is a rural area, 3 is a suburb, and 4 is an urban area.