Ecosystem services (ESs) are essential for human society, and maintaining harmony between ecosystems and humanity to mitigate ES degradation is the fundamental basis for achieving a sustainable state. However, due to the influence of land use and land cover (LULC) and other ecological-economic factors, the quality and capacity of ESs supporting human welfare continue to decline, and the specific processes involved in this decline are still unclear.

The process of transitioning from a rural to an urban setting and from an agricultural to an industrial economy is referred to as urbanization, a complex socioeconomic process. Peri-urbanization is very common in Vietnam, and urban centers are expanding into rural areas. However, there is frequently insufficient infrastructure to support such development. As a result of the restricted availability of land, urbanization frequently necessitates the acquisition of agricultural property by the state in order to encourage development.

The purpose of this study is to develop a new remote sensing method to assess the area of cultivated land illegally converted to nurseries and orchards in the Yangtze River Delta region of China over the past 40 years (1980–2020), and then estimate the increase in grain yield based on this area. Our result showed that 2.23 × 104 km2 of cultivated land was reduced by 11.8% over the past 40 years. About 14,521.40 km2 of cultivated land was converted to nursery and orchard from 1980 to 2020. The conversion area was unevenly distributed among different administrative regions.