scholarly journals Spatiotemporal Change in the Land Use and Ecosystem Service Value in the Aral Sea basin (1993–2018)

Author(s):  
Jing He ◽  
Yang Yu ◽  
Lingxiao Sun ◽  
Haiyan Zhang ◽  
Ireneusz Malik ◽  
...  

Abstract The Aral Sea started shrinking since the 1960s due to natural factors and human activities; however, the relationship between land cover change and ecosystem services (ES) in the Aral Sea basin has not been fully studied. To analyze and explore the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of ecosystem service values (ESVs) in this region, we used the European Space Agency CCI Global Land Cover product with a spatiotemporal resolution of 300 × 300 m and the annual scale. The land use data of 1993, 1998, 2003, 2008, 2013, and 2018 in the study area were extracted, the study area’s ESV in the corresponding years was calculated, and the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics were analyzed. Additionally, the change rate and sensitivity were analyzed. The results revealed that the area of urban land, bare land, grassland, wetland, and cropland in the Aral Sea basin increased from 1993 to 2018; water body and forestland decreased. The integrated value of water bodies, cropland, and grassland ES accounted for more than 96% of the total ESV; the change rate of land use types differed. Urban land and water changed the fastest; cultivated land, woodland, grassland, and wetland changed the slowest. From 1993 to 2018, the total ESV of the Aral Sea basin decreased from 455.10 to 414.56 billion (Overall decrease = − 8.91%). The ESV study shows that the water area decreased sharply from 1993 to 2018, resulting in a loss of USD 46.84 billion. Biodiversity, food production, and water regulation were the main ES, accounting for 78.5% of the total ESV. The ESV of the Aral Sea basin declined from 1993 to 2018, and significant differences were observed among its regions. Some regions should thus focus on this aspect. A close correlation was observed between the ESV and land use. Hence, effective land use policies can control the expansion of cropland; protect water bodies, ecological environments, grassland, and forestland; and promote a more sustainable ecosystem.

PeerJ ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. e12623
Author(s):  
Chao liang Chen ◽  
Xi Chen ◽  
Jing Qian ◽  
Zengyun Hu ◽  
Jun Liu ◽  
...  

Intense human activities in the Aral Sea Basin have changed its natural distribution of land use. Although they provide certain economic benefits, these anthropogenic influences have led to the rapid shrinkage of the Aral Sea, severely affecting the region’s ecosystem. However, the spatiotemporal variability of the Aral Sea Basin’s Ecosystem Service Values (ESVs) is not well understood. In this study, we used 300-meter resolution land use maps from 1995, 2005, and 2015 and the Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) model to predict the future land use patterns of the Aral Sea Basin in 2025. Simultaneously, we divided the Aral Sea Basin into three regions (upstream, midstream, and downstream) and evaluated the dynamic responses of their ESVs to Land Use and Land Cover (LULC) changes. The changes in the types of ecosystem services provided by the Aral Sea Basin, their trade-off, and synergistic relationships were analyzed by weighting their associations. The results showed that from 1995 to 2025, the grassland, urban, and cropland areas in the Aral Sea Basin will expand rapidly, while the areas covered by water bodies will shrink rapidly, causing a total loss of 31.97 billion USD. The downstream loss of 27.79 billion USD of the total amount is mainly caused by the conversion of water bodies to bare land. The ESVs of the middle region will increase by 6.81 billion USD, mainly due to the large amount of water extracted from the Amu Darya and Syr Darya Rivers in the middle regions of the Aral Sea Basin that are used to reclaim cultivated land and expand urban areas. The ESVs and areas experiencing land use changes in the upper regions are relatively small. At the same time, our results show that biodiversity, food production, and water regulation are the major ecosystem service functions, and account for 79.46% of the total ESVs. Of the ecosystem service relationships in the Aral Sea Basin, synergy accounts for 55.56% of the interactions, with a fewer amount of trade-off exchanges. This synergy mainly exists in the relationships involving water regulation, waste treatment and recreation, and culture and tourism. We propose protection measures that will coordinate eco-environmental protection efforts with socioeconomic development in the region in order to achieve the United Nations’ sustainable development goals.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiangyue Li ◽  
Hongxing Chen ◽  
Chi Zhang ◽  
Tao Pan

Acute farmland expansion and rapid urbanization in Central Asia have accelerated land use/land cover changes, which has significant effect onecosystemservice. However, the spatio-temporal changes in ecosystem service values in Central Asia are not well understood. Here, based on land use products with 300-m resolution for the years of 1995, 2005 and 2015 and transfer methodology, we predicted LUCC for 2025 and 2035 using CA-Markov, assessed changes in ecosystem service value in response to LUCC dynamics, and explored the elasticity for the response of ESV to LULC changes. We found significant expansions of cropland and urban and shrinking of water bodies and bare land during 1995-2035. Overall ESVs had an increasing trend from 1995-2035, which was mainly due to the increasing cropland and construction land. The combined valueofecosystemservices of cropland, grassland, water bodies accounted for over 90% of the total ESVs. However, LULC analysis showed that the area of water body reduced by 21.80% from 1995 to 2015 and continued to decrease by 21.14% from 2015 to 2035, indicating that approximately 63.37 billion US$ of ESVs lost in Central Asia. Biodiversity, food production and water regulation were major service functions, accounting for 80.52% of the total ESVs . Our results demonstrated that theeffective land-usepolicies should be made to control farmland expansion and protect water bodies, grassland and forestland for better sustainable ecosystem services.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 787 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhijie Wu ◽  
Yixin Zhang

The urban heat island (UHI) effect caused by urbanization is a major environmental concern. Utilizing cooling effects of water bodies as one type of ecosystem service is an important way to mitigate UHI in urban areas during the daytime. This study aims to examine the influence of water bodies’ cooling effects on the urban land surface temperature (LST). The potential influence on the relationship between urban land cover and the LST are also discussed. The daytime LST in April was retrieved from Landsat-8 thermal infrared band and the grid-based method was adopted to analyze the potential influence. The results indicated that Suzhou Bay is broadly capable of lowering daytime temperatures. The cooling distance can reach 800 m in horizontal space, and the maximum cooling effect was 3.02 °C. Furthermore, the distance to the Suzhou Bay is a great factor for the relationship between land cover and the LST. We found that the cooling effects have weakened the correct quantitative correlation between land cover (e.g., green space and impervious surface) and the LST, particularly green space in the range of 200 m. In addition, the cooling effects have strengthened the “cool edge” phenomenon when analyzing the relationship between the normal difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the LST. We suggest that the distance to the water bodies should be effectively utilized in the microclimate regulation provided by ecosystem services of water bodies. When investigating the thermal effects of urban land, urban planners and designers should consider water bodies’ effects on surrounding areas. These findings have implications for understanding the role of water bodies with ecosystem services of temperature mitigation, which must be fully appreciated for sustainable urban and landscape planning.


Author(s):  
U. K. Mandal

Unscientific utilization of land use and land cover due to rapid growth of urban population deteriorates urban condition. Urban growth, land use change and future urban land demand are key concerns of urban planners. This paper is aimed to model urban land use change essential for sustainable urban development. GI science technology was employed to study the urban change dynamics using Markov Chain and CA-Markov and predicted the magnitude and spatial pattern. It was performed using the probability transition matrix from the Markov chain process, the suitability map of each land use/cover types and the contiguity filter. Suitability maps were generated from the MCE process where weight was derived from the pair wise comparison in the AHP process considering slope, land capability, distance to road, and settlement and water bodies as criterion of factor maps. Thematic land use land cover types of 1999, 2006, and 2013 of Landsat sensors were classified using MLC algorithm. The spatial extent increase from 1999 to 2013 in built up , bush and forest was observed to be 48.30 percent,79.48 percent and 7.79 percent, respectively, while decrease in agriculture and water bodies were 30.26 percent and 28.22 percent. The predicted urban LULC for 2020 and 2027 would provide useful inputs to the decision makers. Built up and bush expansion are explored as the main driving force for loss of agriculture and river areas and has the potential to continue in future also. The abandoned area of river bed has been converted to built- up areas.


2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiangyue Li ◽  
Hongxing Chen ◽  
Chi Zhang ◽  
Tao Pan

Acute farmland expansion and rapid urbanization in Central Asia have accelerated land use/land cover changes, which has significant effect onecosystemservice. However, the spatio-temporal changes in ecosystem service values in Central Asia are not well understood. Here, based on land use products with 300-m resolution for the years of 1995, 2005 and 2015 and transfer methodology, we predicted LUCC for 2025 and 2035 using CA-Markov, assessed changes in ecosystem service value in response to LUCC dynamics, and explored the elasticity for the response of ESV to LULC changes. We found significant expansions of cropland and urban and shrinking of water bodies and bare land during 1995-2035. Overall ESVs had an increasing trend from 1995-2035, which was mainly due to the increasing cropland and construction land. The combined valueofecosystemservices of cropland, grassland, water bodies accounted for over 90% of the total ESVs. However, LULC analysis showed that the area of water body reduced by 21.80% from 1995 to 2015 and continued to decrease by 21.14% from 2015 to 2035, indicating that approximately 63.37 billion US$ of ESVs lost in Central Asia. Biodiversity, food production and water regulation were major service functions, accounting for 80.52% of the total ESVs . Our results demonstrated that theeffective land-usepolicies should be made to control farmland expansion and protect water bodies, grassland and forestland for better sustainable ecosystem services.


PeerJ ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 ◽  
pp. e7665 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jiangyue Li ◽  
Hongxing Chen ◽  
Chi Zhang ◽  
Tao Pan

Acute farmland expansion and rapid urbanization in Central Asia have accelerated land use/land cover changes, which have substantial effects on ecosystem services. However, the spatiotemporal variations in ecosystem service values (ESVs) in Central Asia are not well understood. Here, based on land use products with 300-m resolution for the years 1995, 2005 and 2015 and transfer methodology, we predicted land use and land cover (LULC) for 2025 and 2035 using CA-Markov, assessed changes in ESVs in response to LULC dynamics, and explored the elasticity of the response of ESV to LULC changes. We found significant expansions of cropland (+22.10%) and urban areas (+322.40%) and shrinking of water bodies (−38.43%) and bare land (−9.42%) during 1995–2035. The combined value of ecosystem services of water bodies, cropland, and grassland accounted for over 90% of the total ESVs. Our study showed that cropland ecosystem services value increased by 93.45 billion US$ from 1995 to 2035, which was mainly caused by the expansion of cropland area. However, the area of water bodies decreased sharply during 1995–2035, causing a loss of 64.38 billion US$. Biodiversity, food production and water regulation were major ecosystem service functions, accounting for 80.52% of the total ESVs. Our results demonstrated that effective land-use policies should be made to control farmland expansion and protect water bodies, grassland and forestland for more sustainable ecosystem services.


Author(s):  
Qijiao Xie ◽  
Qi Sun

Aerosols significantly affect environmental conditions, air quality, and public health locally, regionally, and globally. Examining the impact of land use/land cover (LULC) on aerosol optical depth (AOD) helps to understand how human activities influence air quality and develop suitable solutions. The Landsat 8 image and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) aerosol products in summer in 2018 were used in LULC classification and AOD retrieval in this study. Spatial statistics and correlation analysis about the relationship between LULC and AOD were performed to examine the impact of LULC on AOD in summer in Wuhan, China. Results indicate that the AOD distribution expressed an obvious “basin effect” in urban development areas: higher AOD values concentrated in water bodies with lower terrain, which were surrounded by the high buildings or mountains with lower AOD values. The AOD values were negatively correlated with the vegetated areas while positively correlated to water bodies and construction lands. The impact of LULC on AOD varied with different contexts in all cases, showing a “context effect”. The regression correlations among the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), normalized difference built-up index (NDBI), normalized difference water index (NDWI), and AOD in given landscape contexts were much stronger than those throughout the whole study area. These findings provide sound evidence for urban planning, land use management and air quality improvement.


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