Evaluating the impacts of land use change on ecosystem service values under multiple scenarios in the Hunshandake region of China

Integrating a multi-variable scenario with Attention-LSTM model to forecast long-term coastal beach erosion

Beach erosion is an adverse impact of climate change and human development activities. Effective beach management necessitates integrating natural and anthropogenic factors to address future erosion trends, while most current prediction models focus only on natural factors, which may provide an incomplete and potentially inaccurate representation of erosion dynamics. This study enhances prediction methods by integrating both natural and anthropogenic factors, thereby enhancing the accuracy and reliability of erosion projections. By extracting historical shorelines through CoastSat model from 1986 to 2020, we develop multivariable scenarios with Attention-LSTM model to predict the regional impacts of natural and anthropogenic factors on erosion to sandy beaches along the typical shoreline of Shenzhen in China. Results reveal that Shenzhen's beaches experienced erosion up to 12 m over the past 35 years. Here we project a decrease in the mean erosion rate of the beaches, identifying population growth (21.0 %) as the main controlling factor before the mid-century in a range of scenarios. We find that Attention-LSTM multi-model ensemble approach can provide overall improved accuracy and reliability over a wide range of beach erosion compared to scenario prediction model of Attention-LSTM and statistical model of Digital Shoreline Analysis System (DSAS), yielding an average uncertainty of 10.99 compared to 13.29. These insights reveal policies to safeguard beaches because of the rising demand for beaches due to human factors, coupled with decreased impervious surfaces through ecological conservation, lead to mitigation for beach erosion. Accurate forecasts empower policymakers to implement effective coastal management strategies, safeguard resources, and mitigate erosion's adverse effects. Our study offers finely-tuned predictions of coastal erosion, providing crucial insights for future coastal conservation efforts and climate change adaptation along the shoreline, and serving as a foundation for further research aimed at understanding the evolving environmental impacts of beach erosion in Shenzhen.

Evaluation of farmland production potential in key agricultural production areas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau under multi-scenario simulation

Predicting changes in future land use and farmland production potential (FPP) within the context of shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs) is crucial for devising sustainable land use strategies that balance agricultural production and ecological conservation. Therefore, the Huangshui Basin (HSB) in the northeast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is taken as the study area, and a LUCC-Plus-FPP (LPF) coupling framework based on the SSP-RCP scenarios is proposed to evaluate future land use patterns and FPP changes. On the basis of the predictions of land use changes from 2020 to 2070, the trade-offs in grain production resulting from bivariate changes in farmland and FPP under future scenarios are analyzed. The results indicate that the model has a high simulation accuracy for land use types, with an overall accuracy of 0.98, a kappa coefficient of 0.97, and a figure of merit value of 0.21. Under the SSP245 and SSP585 scenarios, built-up land increases significantly, by approximately 45.89 %. Farmland and grassland conversions contribute the most to increased built-up land. Farmland area consistently decreases by approximately 5 % across all scenarios. The protection of farmland in the study area is difficult to undertake and thus requires much attention. Moreover, under the SSP126 scenario, the FPP of most districts is greater than that in 2020, and the average FPP of the HSB from 2030 to 2070 is greater than that in 2020. In the SSP585 scenario, by 2070, the average FPP of all districts decreases to different degrees compared with that in 2020. Furthermore, the compensated farmland quantities and average FPPs under all the scenarios are significantly lower than the amount of occupied farmland. The results provide a theoretical foundation and data support for farmland protection decision-making and layout optimization in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.

Predicting future impacts of climate and land use change on streamflow in the middle reaches of China's Yellow River

With increasing temperatures, changing weather patterns and ongoing development, it is becoming increasingly important to clarify the evolution mechanism of future regional streamflow processes and their controlling factors. In this study, an integrated framework for watershed streamflow prediction based on a Global Climate Model (GCM), the Patch-generating Land Use Simulation model (PLUS), and the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was proposed in the middle Yellow River. The results indicate that, compared with the baseline period (1989-2018), levels of precipitation and maximum and minimum temperatures are expected to increase in the next 30 years, resulting in a warmer and wetter regional climate. Under various climate scenarios, the annual streamflow is projected to increase by 49.2-115.1%. The acreage of various land types may have tended to be saturated, and the main land types such as cropland, forest and grassland have little change (-6.6%-0.6%), so the impact on streamflow will be correspondingly reduced. Under various land use scenarios, the annual streamflow is projected to increase by 5.0%-7.3%. The annual average streamflow trends under the combined climate and land use scenarios are consistent with the climate change scenarios, while the mean values corresponding to the combined scenarios are higher than those of the single scenario. Findings show that climate change is the main driver influencing streamflow, with a contribution of 86.3%-95.1%. This study deepens understanding of the change pattern and influence mechanism of the streamflow process, which can provide a scientific basis for the development and refinement of regional ecological construction plans.

Climate and land use changes impact the trajectories of ecosystem service bundles in an urban agglomeration: Intricate interaction trends and driver identification under SSP-RCP scenarios

The delivery of ecosystem services (ESs), particularly in urban agglomerations, faces substantial threats from impending future climate change and human activity. Assessing ES bundles (ESBs) is critical to understanding the spatial allocation and interactions between multiple ESs. However, dynamic projections of ESBs under various future scenarios are still lacking, and their underlying driving mechanisms have received insufficient attention. This study examined the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration and proposed a framework that integrates patch-generating land use simulation into three shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) scenarios and clustering analysis to assess spatiotemporal variations in seven ESs and ESBs from 1990 to 2050. The spatial trajectories of ESBs were analyzed to identify fluctuating regions susceptible to SSP scenarios. The results indicated that (1) different scenarios exhibited different loss rates of regulating and supporting services, where the mitigation of degradation was most significant under SSP126. The comprehensive ES value was highest under SSP245. (2) Bundles 1 and 2 (dominated by regulating and supporting services) had the largest total proportion under SSP126 (51.92 %). The largest total proportion of Bundles 4 and 5 occurred under SSP585 (48.96 %), with the highest provisioning services. The SSP126 scenario was projected to have the least ESB fluctuation at the grid scale, while the most occurred under SSP585. (3) Notably, synergies between regulating/supporting services were weaker under SSP126 than under either SSP245 or SSP585, while trade-offs between water yield and non-provisioning services were strongest. (4) Forestland and grassland proportions significantly affected carbon sequestration and habitat quality. Climatic factors (precipitation and temperature) acted as the dominant drivers of provisioning services, particularly water yield. Our findings advocate spatial strategies for future regional ES management to address upcoming risks.

Urban landscape sustainability in karst mountainous cities: A landscape resilience perspective

In the context of the rapid progress of global urbanization, the massive encroachment of social landscapes into ecological and productive landscapes has led to a series of environmental problems. Furthermore, analyzing the landscape resilience could effectively reveal the sustainable development ability of the urban landscape. This study establishes a social-ecological productive landscape resilience (SEPLR) evaluation system and reveals trade-offs and synergies between different landscape types and resilience. Finally, this study provides landscape management zonings based on the spatial and temporal dynamic characteristics of landscape resilience and subsystem resilience. The findings showed that: (1) The CUAG has significant landscape heterogeneity and change drastically, which is mainly manifested by the massive encroachment of social landscape into productive landscape. (2) The SEPLR of CUAG decreased slightly by 0.75 % over the decade, with significant changes of spatial distribution. (3) The comprehensive remediation areas and social development areas are the dominant management zones. The findings could be incorporated into the decision-making of land use trade-off development in CUAG to promote the coordinated development of social-ecological productive systems and improve the sustainability of urban landscape.

Land use transition and its effect on ecosystem service value with introducing "three wastes" factor in the industrial county, China

Land use transition and its impact on ecosystem service value (ESV) are the foundation for optimizing the layout of territorial space and ecological civilization construction. With the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization, the area of construction land expands in China. To accurately estimate the ESV in industrial counties, the impact of construction land on the ecological environment should be fully considered. This paper took Gangcheng District, Jinan City, a steel base in the Shandong Province of China as an example, then the value coefficients of "three wastes" factors (waste gas, wastewater, and waste) were introduced, and an improved calculation method of ESV was put forward for industrial counties in combination with remote sensing and land use data. Finally, the land use transition and its ESV effect in typical industrial counties were analyzed using geo-informatic Tupu and grid method. The results showed that the most important land use transitions were from grassland and forestland to cultivated land, from cultivated land and forestland to construction land in 1990-2010, and from cultivated land transformed to forestland in 2010-2021. The types of land use transition were mainly repetitive and continuous. The ESV first decreased and then increased, with a slight overall decline for more than 30 years, showing a spatial distribution characteristic of "low in the south-central and high around." Land use transition had the impact on ESV with the negative contribution rate of 68.28% in 1990-2000 and 73.16% in 2000-2010, mainly caused by the transition from forestland and grassland to cultivated land and construction land, and the positive contribution rate of 81.72% in 2010-2021, mainly caused by the transition from cultivated land to forestland. Compared with the ESV calculation method without introducing the "three wastes" factor and Xie Gaodi's method, the improved method in this paper considered the inevitable impact of construction land on ESV in industrial counties and made the ESV calculated more accurate according to the regional nature. This paper cannot only enrich the theories and technical methods of land use transition and its effects, and provide a case reference for similar industrial counties, but also provide data and decision-making support for the spatial layout and ecological protection in the study area.

Ecosystem service valuation and multi-scenario simulation in the Ebinur Lake Basin using a coupled GMOP-PLUS model

The Ebinur Lake Basin is an ecologically sensitive area in an arid region. Investigating its land use and land cover (LULC) change and assessing and predicting its ecosystem service value (ESV) are of great importance for the stability of the basin's socioeconomic development and sustainable development of its ecological environment. Based on LULC data from 1990, 2000, 2010, and 2020, we assessed the ESV of the Ebinur Lake Basin and coupled the grey multi-objective optimization model with the patch generation land use simulation model to predict ESV changes in 2035 under four scenarios: business-as-usual (BAU) development, rapid economic development (RED), ecological protection (ELP), and ecological-economic balance (EEB). The results show that from 1990 to 2020, the basin was dominated by grassland (51.23%) and unused land (27.6%), with a continuous decrease in unused land and an increase in cultivated land. In thirty years, the total ESV of the study area increased from 18.62 billion to 67.28 billion yuan, with regulation and support services being the dominant functions. By 2035, cultivated land increased while unused land decreased in all four scenarios compared with that in 2020. The total ESV in 2035 under the BAU, RED, ELP, and EEB scenarios was 68.83 billion, 64.47 billion, 67.99 billion, and 66.79 billion yuan, respectively. In the RED and EEB scenarios, ESV decreased by 2.81 billion and 0.49 billion yuan, respectively. In the BAU scenario, provisioning and regulation services increased by 6.05% and 2.93%, respectively. The ELP scenario, focusing on ecological and environmental protection, saw an increase in ESV for all services. This paper can assist policymakers in optimizing land use allocation and provide scientific support for the formulation of land use strategies and sustainable ecological and environmental development in the inland river basins of arid regions.

A methodology to prioritize ecosystem restoration of in-situ well pads in the Permian Basin of western Texas and southeastern New Mexico, USA

Since the mid-2000s, drilling and production of oil and gas activities have grown exponentially in the southwestern United States. The clearing of pre-existing vegetation and topsoil to build well pads is known to have a broad range of ecological, biological, hydrological, and health impacts, therefore ecosystem restoration of the well pads is generally required. This process, however, is often complicated by limited funding, various governing bodies and ownership, and frequent extreme weather events. To ensure that well pad construction does not result in damaging, irreversible environmental change in the region, a prioritization strategy is needed to maximize the effectiveness of restoration efforts. The objective of this study is to develop a methodology to prioritize well pads where ecosystem restoration is urgently needed. In this methodology, a set of locational soil (e.g., soil fragility, wind and water erodibility) and land cover (e.g., land cover, proximity to streams) attributes were derived from publicly available datasets and a restoration priority score system along with a weighting factor were assigned to individual attributes. Accordingly, a total restoration priority score (TRPS) was calculated for individual well pads. This methodology was applied to a dataset of >10,000 well pads located in the Permian Basin and the surrounding area. This method effectively filtered out a large number of sites with low TRPS, and identified a small portion of high-score, clustered well pads. The identification of such well pads makes the logistical challenge of targeted restoration much easier for stakeholders tasked with maximizing the effectiveness of restoration efforts with limited funding. Despite some known limitations and inaccuracies, this method is low-cost and can be easily adaptable to humid and sub-humid systems, and even to restoration relevant to non-oil and gas exploration activities, such as solar and wind development, in the southwestern United States and many other areas worldwide.

Forecast of policy-driven land use change and its impact on ecosystem services in China: A case study of the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Land use change is an important factor affecting the performance of ecosystem services (ESs). Therefore, understanding the impact of land use change on ESs is of great significance for promoting the coordination of regional human-land relationships. In this study, random forest and cellular automata were used to simulate and predict the characteristics of land use change in the Yangtze River Economic Belt, and diversified land use evolution patterns were formed in combination with China's strategic development needs. The effects of habitat suitability on ESs were analyzed by using a multiscenario land use change model. The results demonstrated that the driving factors selected in this article had a good induction effect on the law of land use evolution, and the simulated land use change had high credibility. Under the mode of ecological protection and cultivated land protection, the expansion of construction land was greatly affected and was not conducive to social and economic development. Under the natural evolution mode, farmland was greatly encroached upon, and food security was greatly threatened. The regional coordination model had relative advantages, and all kinds of land use needs were met to a certain extent. The water production function of ESs was strong, but the carbon storage function was weak. The relationship between the habitat suitability index and ES changes under land use change revealed that there were significant differences in ES changes caused by ecological quality changes in mountainous and plain areas. This study provides a reference for promoting social and economic development and ecosystem integrity. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2023;19:1473-1484. © 2023 SETAC.

Landscape Pattern and Ecological Risk Assessment in Guilin Based on Land Use Change

The land use and ecological risk patterns in Guilin, which is the only innovation demonstration zone under the National Sustainable Development Agenda in China with a focus on the sustainable use of natural resources, have changed significantly as a result of the combined impact of climate change and human activities, thus presenting challenges to the sustainable development of the local area. This research employs an ecological risk assessment model and spatial analysis techniques in order to analyze the spatial correlation between land use and ecological risk, and to evaluate the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of ecological risk at the overall and county scales in Guilin. The results reveal the following: (1) A total of 1848.6 km² land types in Guilin have changed from 2000 to 2020, and construction land has gradually expanded from the central urban area to the suburbs with increasing internal stability each year. (2) The ecological risk level in Guilin showed a decreasing trend at the city scale, but some regions still showed an increasing trend at the county distribution scale. (3) The ecological risk value in Guilin has significant spatial correlation, and the spatial distribution showed a clustering effect, which was consistent with the spatial distribution of ecological risk class areas. The research results can provide a reference for ecological risk control and sustainable development of landscape resource cities.