Integrating Biophysical and Sociocultural Methods for Identifying the Relationships between Ecosystem Services and Land Use Change: Insights from an Oasis Area

Identifying the relationships between ecosystem services (ESs) and land use change is crucial for ES management and sustainable regional development. The Manas region in China has witnessed dramatic reclamation activities in its desert areas that resulted in ecological problems. The changes in eight ESs, including crop production (CP), livestock production (LP), soil conservation (SC), water yield (WY), sand fixation (SF), carbon sequestration (CS), habitat quality (HQ), and nature landscape recreation (NLR), were investigated by using biophysical and questionnaire methods. At the regional scale, provisioning services (i.e., CP and LP) showed some performance improvements, whereas most of the regulating services (i.e., WY, CS, and HQ) along with NLR showed a performance decline. Five ES bundles—Upper Mountain, Foothill, Oasis, Oasis–Desert Transition, and Desert bundle—were identified at the township scale via k-means clustering. From 2000 to 2015, the Oasis bundle sprawled as a result of oasisization, whereas the Oasis–Desert Transition and Foothill bundles decreased. We performed a questionnaire survey and a statistical analysis to identify the causes behind the performance improvement/decline of these ESs and found that the land use changes in the Manas region had a significant impact on these services. More than 50% of the survey respondents identified land use changes as the primary driver of the changes in some ESs (i.e., CP, CS, HQ, and NLR). In the correlation and partial correlation analyses, oasisization was significantly and positively correlated with CP but was negatively correlated with WY, CS, HQ, and NLR. We enhanced the reliability of our conclusions by integrating biophysical and sociocultural methods into our investigation of ES and land use change. In view of the huge losses in regulating and cultural services, the Manas region should limit its desert reclamation activities to control the expansion of its oasis and to improve the quality of its cropland. Our results can help formulate effective ES management and land use decisions in the Manas region or similar areas.

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The impact of fictitious land use changes on water management related ecosystem services in a Hungarian catchment

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-1090 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Bence Decsi ◽

Zsolt Kozma

Keyword(s):

Water Management ◽

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Agricultural Land ◽

Crop Yields ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Water Yield ◽

The Future ◽

The Impact

As a result of climate change, improving the efficiency of our water management has become a key social goal in recent decades. In many regions, water management problems are becoming more common as the result of hydrologic extremes, such as water scarcity, drought or floods.Countries and regions dealing with water problems, like some parts of Hungary, could avoid major damage by land use change. The possibility of land use change is obviously not an option in certain instances, especially in populated areas or areas with major infrastructure (roads, railways, airports, factories, etc.). At the same time, non-populated areas (primarily agricultural land) may be transformed in the future, in the hope of better water management.Complex, multi-dimensional assessment of ecosystem services can be a step forward in the evaluation and planning of future land use changes with the aim of improving water resources management. The strength of this approach is multi-disciplinarity, which requires the collaboration of representatives of the technical, economic, social and ecological sciences.In our study, we quantified and mapped the most important water resources related indicators and services of the Zala River basin in Western Hungary. Zala River is the largest sub-catchment of Lake Balaton, Central-Europe&#8217;s largest standing water. The lake has great economic and social importance in Hungary, primarily due to its recreational and cultural services, so it is necessary to have sufficient quantity and quality of water. &#160;The catchment area is 1521 km2, land use conditions are dominated by agricultural and forest areas (around 57% and 37% respectively).For the quantification of ecosystem services indicators, we used the GIS based, static model package InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs). InVEST is suggested to describe the socio-ecological state of several services, under various periods or land use conditions. The strength of the model lies in its solid data requirements and low computational demand. In our work, we mapped the following services and indicators: annual water yield, seasonal water yield, quickflow, nutrient retention, sediment retention and agricultural crop yields.We examined the impact of different interventions on the ecosystem services. We intervened primarily in areas where agricultural land use is not justified due to different environmental conditions. In these areas, we analyzed the introduction of natural surfaces with afforestation and meadows. We built up a reference (based on a novel LULC map representing actual conditions) and some fictive model variants. These model variants differed in the amount and location of the new semi-natural areas. The variants were compared for two temporal periods: 1980-2010 and 2020-2050 (based on climate models).We quantified the tradeoffs as a result of a given land use change. As expected, the future negative effects of climate change could be mitigated by increasing semi-natural areas. All ecosystem services would improve except for crop yields. At the same time, however, farmers would be deprived of significant yields in areas, which are excluded from agriculture. Our research highlights that the positive effects or tradeoffs due to land-use change will be needed in the future.

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The Influence of Land Use Change on Key Ecosystem Services and Their Relationships in a Mountain Region from Past to Future (1995–2050)

Forests ◽

10.3390/f12050616 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (5) ◽

pp. 616

Author(s):

Jie Gao ◽

Xuguang Tang ◽

Shiqiu Lin ◽

Hongyan Bian

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Sustainable Land Use ◽

Mountain Region ◽

Water Yield ◽

Mountain Regions ◽

Mountain Areas ◽

The Government ◽

Steep Slopes

The ecosystem services (ESs) provided by mountain regions can bring about benefits to people living in and around the mountains. Ecosystems in mountain areas are fragile and sensitive to anthropogenic disturbance. Understanding the effect of land use change on ESs and their relationships can lead to sustainable land use management in mountain regions with complex topography. Chongqing, as a typical mountain region, was selected as the site of this research. The long-term impacts of land use change on four key ESs (i.e., water yield (WY), soil conservation (SC), carbon storage (CS), and habitat quality (HQ)) and their relationships were assessed from the past to the future (at five-year intervals, 1995–2050). Three future scenarios were constructed to represent the ecological restoration policy and different socioeconomic developments. From 1995 to 2015, WY and SC experienced overall increases. CS and HQ increased slightly at first and then decreased significantly. A scenario analysis suggested that, if the urban area continues to increase at low altitudes, by 2050, CS and HQ are predicted to decrease moderately. However, great improvements in SC, HQ, and CS are expected to be achieved by the middle of the century if the government continues to make efforts towards vegetation restoration on the steep slopes.

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The Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform: IEEM Platform Technical Guides: User Guide for the IEEM-enhanced Land Use Land Cover Change Model Dyna-CLUE

10.18235/0003625 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Peter H. Verburg ◽

Žiga Malek ◽

Sean P. Goodwin ◽

Cecilia Zagaria

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Environmental Modeling ◽

Modeling Framework ◽

Regional Modelling ◽

Model Application ◽

Climatic Regions ◽

Single Region

The Conversion of Land Use and its Effects modeling framework (CLUE) was developed to simulate land use change using empirically quantified relations between land use and its driving factors in combination with dynamic modeling of competition between land use types. Being one of the most widely used spatial land use models, CLUE has been applied all over the world on different scales. In this document, we demonstrate how the model can be used to develop a multi-regional application. This means, that instead of developing numerous individual models, the user only prepares one CLUE model application, which then allocates land use change across different regions. This facilitates integration with the Integrated Economic-Environmental Modeling (IEEM) Platform for subnational assessments and increases the efficiency of the IEEM and Ecosystem Services Modeling (IEEMESM) workflow. Multi-regional modelling is particularly useful in larger and diverse countries, where we can expect different spatial distributions in land use changes in different regions: regions of different levels of achieved socio-economic development, regions with different topographies (flat vs. mountainous), or different climatic regions (dry vs humid) within a same country. Accounting for such regional differences also facilitates developing ecosystem services models that consider region specific biophysical characteristics. This manual, and the data that is provided with it, demonstrates multi-regional land use change modeling using the country of Colombia as an example. The user will learn how to prepare the data for the model application, and how the multi-regional run differs from a single-region simulation.

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Future Impacts of Land Use Change on Ecosystem Services under Different Scenarios in the Ecological Conservation Area, Beijing, China

Forests ◽

10.3390/f11050584 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 11 (5) ◽

pp. 584 ◽

Cited By ~ 4

Author(s):

Zuzheng Li ◽

Xiaoqin Cheng ◽

Hairong Han

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Carbon Storage ◽

Soil Conservation ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Conservation Area ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Ecological Conservation ◽

Flood Regulation

Ecosystem services (ES), defined as benefits provided by the ecosystem to society, are essential to human well-being. However, it remains unclear how they will be affected by land-use changes due to lack of knowledge and data gaps. Therefore, understanding the response mechanism of ecosystem services to land-use change is critical for developing systematic and sound land planning. In this study, we aimed to explore the impacts of land-use change on the three ecosystem services, carbon storage (CS), flood regulation (FR), and soil conservation (SC), in the ecological conservation area of Beijing, China. We first projected land-use changes from 2015 to 2030, under three scenarios, i.e., Business as Usual (BAU), Ecological Land Protection (ELP), and Rapid Economic Development (RED), by interactively integrating the Markov model (Quantitative simulation) with the GeoSOS-FLUS model (Spatial arrangement), and then quantified the three ecosystem services by using a spatially explicit InVEST model. The results showed that built-up land would have the most remarkable growth during 2015–2030 under the RED scenario (2.52% increase) at the expense of cultivated and water body, while forest land is predicted to increase by 152.38 km2 (1.36% increase) under the ELP scenario. The ELP scenario would have the highest amount of carbon storage, flood regulation, and soil conservation, due to the strict protection policy on ecological land. The RED scenario, in which a certain amount of cultivated land, water body, and forest land is converted to built-up land, promotes soil conservation but triggers greater loss of carbon storage and flood regulation capacity. The conversion between land-use types will affect trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services, in which carbon storage would show significant positive correlation with soil conservation through the period of 2015 to 2030, under all scenarios. Together, our results provide a quantitative scientific report that policymakers and land managers can use to identify and prioritize the best practices to sustain ecosystem services, by balancing the trade-offs among services.

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The Effects of Land-Use Change/Conversion on Trade-Offs of Ecosystem Services in Three Precipitation Zones

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su132313306 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (23) ◽

pp. 13306

Author(s):

Qiang Feng ◽

Siyan Dong ◽

Baoling Duan

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Piecewise Linear ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Spatial Differentiation ◽

Mean Annual Precipitation ◽

Water Yield ◽

Trade Off ◽

Trade Offs ◽

Negative Effect

Revealing the spatial differentiation of ecosystem service (ES) trade-offs and their responses to land-use change along precipitation gradients are important issues in the Loess Plateau of China. We selected three watersheds called Dianshi (300 mm < MAP (mean annual precipitation) < 400 mm), Ansai (400 mm < MAP < 500 mm), and Linzhen (500 mm < MAP < 600 mm). A new ES trade-off quantification index was proposed, and quantile regression, piecewise linear regression, and redundancy analysis were used. The results were as follows. (1) Carbon sequestration (TC) and soil conservation (SEC) increased, but water yield (WY) decreased in the three watersheds from 2000 to 2018. (2) The effect of forests on trade-offs was positive in three watersheds, the main effect of shrubs was also positive, but the negative effect appeared in the TC-WY trade-off in Ansai. Grassland exacerbated trade-offs in Dianshi, whereas it reduced trade-offs in Ansai and Linzhen. These effects exhibited respective trends with the quantile in the three watersheds. (3) There were threshold values that trade-offs responded to land-use changes, and we could design land-use conversion types to balance ESs. In general, the water consumption of grass cannot be ignored in Dianshi; shrubs and grass are suitable vegetation types, and forests need to be restricted in Ansai; more forests and shrubs can be supported in Linzen due to higher precipitation, but the current proportions of forests and shrubs are too high. Our research contributes to a better understanding of the response mechanisms of ES trade-offs to land-use changes.

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Land Use Change and Policy in Iowa’s Loess Hills

Sustainable Agriculture Research ◽

10.5539/sar.v5n4p30 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 5 (4) ◽

pp. 30 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Gaurav Arora ◽

Peter T. Wolter ◽

David A. Hennessy ◽

Hongli Feng

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Crop Production ◽

Policy Design ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

State Level ◽

Crop Productivity ◽

Loess Hills ◽

Data Layers

Land use changes have important implications on ecosystems and society. Detailed identification of the nature of land use changes in any local region is critical for policy design. In this paper, we quantify land use change in Iowa’s Loess Hills ecoregion, which contains much of the state’s remaining prairie grasslands. We employ two distinct panel datasets, the National Resource Inventory data and multi-year Cropland Data Layers, that allow us to characterize spatially-explicit land use change in the region over the period 1982-2010. We analyze land use trends, land use transitions and crop rotations within the ecoregion, and contrast these with county and state-level changes. To better comprehend the underlying land use changes, we evaluate our land use characterizing metrics conditional on soil quality variables such as slope and erodibility. We also consider the role of contemporary agricultural policy and commodity markets to seek explanations for land use changes during the period of our study. Although crop production has expanded on the Loess Hills landform since 2005, much of the expansion in corn acres has been from reduced soybean acreage. We find that out of the total 258 km2 increase in corn acreage during 2005-’10, about 100 km2 transitioned from soybeans. Data also indicate intensifying monoculture with higher percentage of corn plantings for two to four consecutive years during 2000-’10. In addition, crop production is found to have moved away from more heavily sloped land. Cropping does not appear to have increased on lands with higher crop productivity.

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Modeling runoff response to land-use changes using the SWAT model in the Mundaú watershed, Brazil

Journal of Environmental Analysis and Progress ◽

10.24221/jeap.5.2.2020.2828.194-206 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 5 (2) ◽

pp. 194-206

Author(s):

Carolyne Wanessa Lins de Andrade Farias ◽

Suzana Maria Gico Lima Montenegro ◽

Abelardo Antônio de Assunção Montenegro ◽

José Romualdo de Sousa Lima ◽

Raghavan Srinivasan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Sediment Yield ◽

Surface Runoff ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Swat Model ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Water Yield ◽

Grazing Land ◽

Runoff And Sediment Yield

Land-use change has a significant influence on runoff process of any watershed, and the deepening of this theme is essential to assist decision making, within the scope of water resources management. The study was conducted for Mundaú River Basin (MRB) using the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model. The study aims to assess the issue of land-use change and its effect on evapotranspiration, surface runoff, and sediment yield. Input data like land use, topography, weather, and soil data features are required to undertake watershed simulation. Two scenarios of land use were analyzed over 30 years, which were: a regeneration scenario (referring to use in the year 1987) and another scene of degradation (relating to use in the year 2017). Land use maps for 1987 and 2017 were acquired from satellite images. Overall, during the last three decades, 76.4% of forest was lost in the MRB. The grazing land increased in 2017 at a few more than double the area that existed in 1987. Changes in land use, over the years, resulted in an increase of about 37% in the water yield of MRB. Changes have led to increased processes such as surface runoff and sediment yield and in the decrease of evapotranspiration. The spatial and temporal distribution of land use controls the water balance and sediment production in the MRB.

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Response of hydrological processes to climate and land use changes in Hiso River watershed, Fukushima, Japan

10.5194/egusphere-egu21-5316 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Shilei Peng ◽

Chunying Wang ◽

Sadao Eguchi ◽

Kanta Kuramochi ◽

Masato Igura ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Future Climate ◽

Hydrological Processes ◽

Combination Method ◽

Water Yield ◽

Climate Scenarios ◽

River Watershed ◽

Annual Water

Hydrological processes at basin scale are driven by climate and land-use changes. Hiso River watershed (HRW) is within a radiocesium contaminated area caused by the disaster in Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant (FDNPP). It&#8217;s urgently needed to make evaluations on how changes of climate and land-use bring impacts on hydrological processes, which control pollutants transport in watershed. This study applied a combination method of Statistical DownScaling Model (SDSM) and Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) to generate future climatic and hydrologic variables. Future climate data was obtained from three Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP2.6, 4.5 and 8.5) scenarios of a single General Circulation Models (GCMs) in three future periods of 2030s, 2060s and 2090s (2010-2039, 2040-2069, 2070-2099), with a baseline period (1980-2009). Furthermore, according to land-use change in HRW during 2013-2017, three land-use change scenarios under the three future climate scenarios were established. Results suggested that SDSM showed good capabilities in capturing daily maximum/minimum temperature and precipitation. The SWAT model presented good performances in simulating monthly and yearly streamflow. Results also suggested projected higher temperatures and lower rainfall led to decreased annual water yield and evapotranspiration (ET). The annual water yield and ET decreased in most seasons while had a slight increase in spring. RCP8.5 scenario always generated larger magnitudes for climatic variables and water balance components compared with other climate scenarios. Land-use changes had strong impact on surface runoff and groundwater flow. These findings could provide reference for decontamination and revitalization policy-making under complicated land use and climate change conditions.

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The impact of land use change, climate change and reservoir construction on ecosystem services in a Mediterranean catchment

10.5194/egusphere-egu2020-7177 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Joris Eekhout ◽

Carolina Boix-Fayos ◽

Pedro Pérez-Cutillas ◽

Joris de Vente

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Ecosystem Services ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Urban Expansion ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Sediment Concentration ◽

Low Flow ◽

Reservoir Construction ◽

The Impact

The Mediterranean region has been identified as one of the most affected global hot-spots for climate change. Recent climate change in the Mediterranean can be characterized by faster increasing temperatures than the global mean and significant decreases in annual precipitation. Besides, important land cover changes have occurred, such as reforestation, agricultural intensification, urban expansion and the construction of many reservoirs, mainly with the purpose to store water for irrigation. Here we study the impacts of these changes on several ecosystem services in the Segura River catchment, a typical large Mediterranean catchment where many of the before mentioned changes have occurred in the last half century. We applied a hydrological model, coupled with a soil erosion and sediment transport model, to study the impact of climate and land cover change and reservoir construction on ecosystem services for the period 1971-2010. Eight ecosystem services indicators were defined, which include runoff, plant water stress, hillslope erosion, reservoir sediment yield, sediment concentration, reservoir storage, flood discharge and low flow. To assess larger land use changes, we also applied the model for an extended period (1952-2018) to the Taibilla subcatchment, a typical Mediterranean mountainous subcatchment, which plays an important role in the provision of water within the Segura River catchment. As main results we observed that climate change in the evaluated period is characterized by a decrease in precipitation and an increase in temperature. Detected land use change over the past 50 years is typical for many Mediterranean catchments. Natural vegetation in the headwaters increased due to agricultural land abandonment. Agriculture expanded in the central part of the catchment, which most likely is related to the construction of reservoirs in the same area. The downstream part of the catchment is characterized by urban expansion. While land use changed in more than 30% of the catchment, most impact on ecosystem services can be attributed to climate change and reservoir construction. All these changes have had positive and negative impacts on ecosystem services. The positive impacts include a decrease in hillslope erosion, sediment yield, sediment concentration and flood discharge (-21%, -18%, -82% and -41%, respectively). The negative impacts include an increase in plant water stress (+5%) and a decrease in reservoir storage (-5%). The decrease in low flow caused by land use change was counteracted by an increase in low flow due to reservoir construction. The results of our study highlight how relatively small climate and land use changes compared to the changes foreseen for the coming decades, have had an important impact on ecosystem services over the past 50 years.

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An assessment of land use change impacts on the water resources of the Mula and Mutha Rivers catchment upstream of Pune, India

Hydrology and Earth System Sciences ◽

10.5194/hess-17-2233-2013 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 17 (6) ◽

pp. 2233-2246 ◽

Cited By ~ 80

Author(s):

P. D. Wagner ◽

S. Kumar ◽

K. Schneider

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Water Resources ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Water Balance ◽

Assessment Tool ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Hydrologic Model ◽

Water Yield ◽

Catchment Scale ◽

Basin Scale

Abstract. Land use changes are altering the hydrologic system and have potentially large impacts on water resources. Rapid socio-economic development drives land use change. This is particularly true in the case of the rapidly developing city of Pune, India. The present study aims at analyzing past land use changes between 1989 and 2009 and their impacts on the water balance in the Mula and Mutha Rivers catchment upstream of Pune. Land use changes were identified from three Rivers catchment multitemporal land use classifications for the cropping years 1989/1990, 2000/2001, and 2009/2010. The hydrologic model SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) was used to assess impacts on runoff and evapotranspiration. Two model runs were performed and compared using the land use classifications of 1989/1990 and 2009/2010. The main land use changes were identified as an increase of urban area from 5.1% to 10.1% and cropland from 9.7% to 13.5% of the catchment area during the 20 yr period. Urbanization was mainly observed in the eastern part and conversion to cropland in the mid-northern part of the catchment. At the catchment scale we found that the impacts of these land use changes on the water balance cancel each other out. However, at the sub-basin scale urbanization led to an increase of the water yield by up to 7.6%, and a similar decrease of evapotranspiration, whereas the increase of cropland resulted in an increase of evapotranspiration by up to 5.9%.

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