Water scarcity in densely populated areas is a global concern. In China, ensuring water supply and quality in the middle of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project has become a major challenge due to the complexity and diversity of landscape features and the trunk canal construction in the crossing area of this route. Precise assessments of the pressures on water protection along the route are urgently needed. This article provides a rigorous methodological framework to assess water quality protection, identifying the intensity of human disturbance along the route within 2-km radius buffer areas on both sides of the trunk canal, based on land-use changes from 2005 to 2015. The results show that more than 10,000 ha of pervious surfaces were transformed into impervious surfaces, leading to undesirable outcomes. The results of this study can be used for decisive support in China’s environmental management, such as with main functional zoning policy and ecological red lines policy.
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