scholarly journals Spatiotemporal Variation Characteristics of Ecosystem Service Losses in the Agro-Pastoral Ecotone of Northern China

Author(s):  
Yuejuan Yang ◽  
Kun Wang ◽  
Di Liu ◽  
Xinquan Zhao ◽  
Jiangwen Fan ◽  
...  

Being subject to climate change and human intervention, the land-use pattern in the agro-pastoral ecotone of Northern China has undergone complex changes over the past few decades, which may jeopardize the provision of ecosystem services. Thus, for sustainable land management, ecosystem services should be evaluated and monitored. In this study, based on Landsat TM/ETM data, we quantitatively evaluated the losses of ecosystem service values (ESV) in three sections of the agro-pastoral ecotone from 1980–2015. The results were as follows: (1) the main characteristic of the land conversions was that a large area of grassland was converted into cultivated land in the agro-pastoral ecotone; (2) on the spatial scale, the ESV losses of the agro-pastoral ecotone can be called an “inclined surface” in the direction of the northeast to southwest, and the northeastern section of the agro-pastoral ecotone lost more ESV than the middle and northwest sections (p < 0.05), on the temporal scale, the order of losses was 1990–2000 > 1980–1990 > 2000–2015; (3) the agro-pastoral ecotone lost more ESV, which was mainly due to four kinds of land conversion, which were grassland that was transformed into cultivated land, grassland transformed into unused land, grassland transformed into built-up areas, and cultivated land transformed into built-up areas; (4) although these land conversions were curbed after the implementation of protection policies at the end of the 1990s, due to reduced precipitation and increasing temperatures, the agro-pastoral ecotone will face a more severe situation in the future; and, (5) during the period of 1990–2015, the overall dynamic processes of increasing population gradually expanded to the sparsely populated pastoral area. Therefore, we believe that human interventions are the main cause of ecological deterioration in the agro-pastoral ecotone. This study provides references for fully understanding the regional differences in the ecological and environmental effects of land use change and it helps to objectively evaluate ecological civilization construction in the agro-pastoral ecotone of Northern China.

2012 ◽  
Vol 518-523 ◽  
pp. 5116-5120
Author(s):  
Pei Ji Shi ◽  
Xue Bin Zhang ◽  
Jun Luo ◽  
Xue Min Zhang

Based on the detailed survey of land use change in Shiyang river basin, referencing Costanza, and Xie et al’ research results of the value of ecosystem services, this article probed the variation of land use and value of ecosystem service in Wuwei region. The results are: from 1997 to 2006, the area of woodland, construction land and garden land are increasing, while farmland, grassland, water and unused land are continuing to decrease. Land-use intensity is gradually increasing, the land use pattern towards to a centralized style. The values of ecosystem services are overall upward, and change faster than ever. The main part of the value of ecosystem service is constituted by the value of grassland, woodland and farmland. So it’s important to control the expansion of urban construction, strength the protection of the water, restore and enhance regional ecosystem services in the future.


Water ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (10) ◽  
pp. 2706 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjana Ekka ◽  
Saket Pande ◽  
Yong Jiang ◽  
Pieter van der Zaag

The process of development has led to the modification of river landscapes. This has created imbalances between ecological, economic, and socio-cultural uses of ecosystem services (ESs), threatening the biotic and social integrity of rivers. Anthropogenic modifications influence river landscapes on multiple scales, which impact river-flow regimes and thus the production of river ESs. Despite progress in developing approaches for the valuation ecosystem goods and services, the ecosystem service research fails to acknowledge the biophysical structure of river landscape where ecosystem services are generated. Therefore, the purpose of this review is to synthesize the literature to develop the understanding of the biocomplexity of river landscapes and its importance in ecosystem service research. The review is limited to anthropogenic modifications from catchment to reach scale which includes inter-basin water transfer, change in land-use pattern, sub-surface modifications, groundwater abstractions, stream channelization, dams, and sand mining. Using 86 studies, the paper demonstrates that river ESs largely depend on the effective functioning of biophysical processes, which are linked with the geomorphological, ecological, and hydrological characteristics of river landscapes. Further, the ESs are linked with the economic, ecological, and socio-cultural aspect. The papers show that almost all anthropogenic modifications have positive impact on economic value of ESs. The ecological and socio-cultural values are negatively impacted by anthropogenic modifications such as dams, inter-basin water transfer, change in land-use pattern, and sand mining. The socio-cultural impact of ground-water abstraction and sub-surface modifications are not found in the literature examined here. Further, the ecological and socio-cultural aspects of ecosystem services from stakeholders’ perspective are discussed. We advocate for linking ecosystem service assessment with landscape signatures considering the socio-ecological interactions.


2020 ◽  
Vol 165 ◽  
pp. 02028
Author(s):  
Yi Luo ◽  
Shuang Liu ◽  
Cheng Zhang ◽  
Ruiying Ning ◽  
Jiajin Zhou

In order to evaluate the change of ecosystem service value in Chengdu, GIS technology was used to obtain the land use type data of Chengdu from 2009 to 2018. The equivalent factor method was used as the core evaluation method, and an ecosystem value evaluation model was established to explore the impact of various land use types on ecosystem service value. The results show that: (1) the trend of land use change is that both the area and the proportion of land use change in different degrees. The area of cultivated land, water area and unused land are greatly reduced, and the area of construction land expands rapidly, mainly through the occupation of cultivated land and unused land. (2) The intensity of land use in Chengdu is greater and continues to increase, and the contribution rate of construction land is larger, which indicates that the land use structure is developing towards the structural direction of mainly construction land. (3) Changes in ecosystem service value are not only related to land use structure, but also to the economic development, willingness to pay and ability of the whole society. (4) Ecosystem service value is negatively correlated with construction land and unused land; it is positively correlated with cultivated land, forest land and grassland. Generally speaking, Chengdu’s land use change has not caused obvious damage to the ecosystem, but the impact of human lifestyle on the environment in the process of economic development cannot be ignored. The growth of construction land area should be appropriately controlled, ecological land should be protected, and the sustainable development of social-economic-ecological benefits should be realized.


Author(s):  
Qinglong Ding ◽  
Yang Chen ◽  
Lingtong Bu ◽  
Yanmei Ye

The past decades were witnessing unprecedented habitat degradation across the globe. It thus is of great significance to investigate the impacts of land use change on habitat quality in the context of rapid urbanization, particularly in developing countries. However, rare studies were conducted to predict the spatiotemporal distribution of habitat quality under multiple future land use scenarios. In this paper, we established a framework by coupling the future land use simulation (FLUS) model with the Intergrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model. We then analyzed the habitat quality change in Dongying City in 2030 under four scenarios: business as usual (BAU), fast cultivated land expansion scenario (FCLE), ecological security scenario (ES) and sustainable development scenario (SD). We found that the land use change in Dongying City, driven by urbanization and agricultural reclamation, was mainly characterized by the transfer of cultivated land, construction land and unused land; the area of unused land was significantly reduced. While the habitat quality in Dongying City showed a degradative trend from 2009 to 2017, it will be improved from 2017 to 2030 under four scenarios. The high-quality habitat will be mainly distributed in the Yellow River Estuary and coastal areas, and the areas with low-quality habitat will be concentrated in the central and southern regions. Multi-scenario analysis shows that the SD will have the highest habitat quality, while the BAU scenario will have the lowest. It is interesting that the ES scenario fails to have the highest capacity to protect habitat quality, which may be related to the excessive saline alkali land. Appropriate reclamation of the unused land is conducive to cultivated land protection and food security, but also improving the habitat quality and giving play to the versatility and multidimensional value of the agricultural landscape. This shows that the SD of comprehensive coordination of urban development, agricultural development and ecological protection is an effective way to maintain the habitat quality and biodiversity.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 501
Author(s):  
Xuege Wang ◽  
Fengqin Yan ◽  
Yinwei Zeng ◽  
Ming Chen ◽  
Bin He ◽  
...  

Extensive urbanization around the world has caused a great loss of farmland, which significantly impacts the ecosystem services provided by farmland. This study investigated the farmland loss due to urbanization in the Guangdong–Hong Kong–Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) of China from 1980 to 2018 based on multiperiod datasets from the Land Use and Land Cover of China databases. Then, we calculated ecosystem service values (ESVs) of farmland using valuation methods to estimate the ecosystem service variations caused by urbanization in the study area. The results showed that 3711.3 km2 of farmland disappeared because of urbanization, and paddy fields suffered much higher losses than dry farmland. Most of the farmland was converted to urban residential land from 1980 to 2018. In the past 38 years, the ESV of farmland decreased by 5036.7 million yuan due to urbanization, with the highest loss of 2177.5 million yuan from 2000–2010. The hydrological regulation, food production and gas regulation of farmland decreased the most due to urbanization. The top five cities that had the largest total ESV loss of farmland caused by urbanization were Guangzhou, Dongguan, Foshan, Shenzhen and Huizhou. This study revealed that urbanization has increasingly become the dominant reason for farmland loss in the GBA. Our study suggests that governments should increase the construction of ecological cities and attractive countryside to protect farmland and improve the regional ESV.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (2) ◽  
pp. 173
Author(s):  
Changjun Gu ◽  
Yili Zhang ◽  
Linshan Liu ◽  
Lanhui Li ◽  
Shicheng Li ◽  
...  

Land use and land cover (LULC) changes are regarded as one of the key drivers of ecosystem services degradation, especially in mountain regions where they may provide various ecosystem services to local livelihoods and surrounding areas. Additionally, ecosystems and habitats extend across political boundaries, causing more difficulties for ecosystem conservation. LULC in the Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) has undergone obvious changes over the past four decades; however, the spatiotemporal changes of the LULC across the whole of the KSL are still unclear, as well as the effects of LULC changes on ecosystem service values (ESVs). Thus, in this study we analyzed LULC changes across the whole of the KSL between 2000 and 2015 using Google Earth Engine (GEE) and quantified their impacts on ESVs. The greatest loss in LULC was found in forest cover, which decreased from 5443.20 km2 in 2000 to 5003.37 km2 in 2015 and which mainly occurred in KSL-Nepal. Meanwhile, the largest growth was observed in grassland (increased by 548.46 km2), followed by cropland (increased by 346.90 km2), both of which mainly occurred in KSL-Nepal. Further analysis showed that the expansions of cropland were the major drivers of the forest cover change in the KSL. Furthermore, the conversion of cropland to shrub land indicated that farmland abandonment existed in the KSL during the study period. The observed forest degradation directly influenced the ESV changes in the KSL. The total ESVs in the KSL decreased from 36.53 × 108 USD y−1 in 2000 to 35.35 × 108 USD y−1 in 2015. Meanwhile, the ESVs of the forestry areas decreased by 1.34 × 108 USD y−1. This shows that the decrease of ESVs in forestry was the primary cause to the loss of total ESVs and also of the high elasticity. Our findings show that even small changes to the LULC, especially in forestry areas, are noteworthy as they could induce a strong ESV response.


One Ecosystem ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 5 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dirk Vrebos ◽  
Jan Staes ◽  
Steven Broekx ◽  
Leo de Nocker ◽  
Karen Gabriels ◽  
...  

Since the early 2000s, there have been substantial efforts to transform the concept of ecosystem services into practice. Spatial assessment tools are being developed to evaluate the impact of spatial planning on a wide range of ecosystem services. However, the actual implementation in decision-making remains limited. To improve implementation, tools that are tailored to local conditions can provide accurate, meaningful information. Instead of a generic and widely-applicable tool, we developed a regional, spatially-explicit tool (ECOPLAN-SE) to analyse the impact of changes in land use on the delivery of 18 ecosystem services in Flanders (Belgium). The tool incorporates ecosystem services relevant to policy-makers and managers and makes use of detailed local data and knowledge. By providing an easy-to-use tool, including the required spatial geodatasets, time investment and the learning curve remain limited for the user. With this tool, constraints to implement ecosystem service assessments in local decision-making are drastically reduced. We believe that region-specific decision support systems, like ECOPLAN-SE, are indispensable intermediates between the conceptual ecosystem service frameworks and the practical implementation in planning processes.


2020 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 04026
Author(s):  
Liyan Wang ◽  
Chao Chen ◽  
Kai Wang

It is an effective method to study the value change of ecological services based on land use and cover change information. This paper analyzed the land use and cover change information in the research area, which is based on the remote sensing images and social statistics data of 2005, 2010, and 2015, and then, quantitative estimation of the ecosystem service value was performed. Yangtze-Huaihe river basin, China is a fragile ecological area, which is selected as the research area. During 2005-2015, the area of cultivated land and construction land was the main land use types in the study area, the land use and cover change in the study area were obvious, which was characterized by the increasing of construction land area and the decreasing of cultivated land area, and the total ecosystem services value in the research area has been decreasing continuously, the value from 34.376 billion yuan in 2005 to 26.161 billion yuan in 2015.


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