Impact of urban land-use on ecosystem services: A case study of Changzhou City, China

Background/Question/Methods

Land use is an important component of urban sustainable development. It can provide various significant ecosystem services for residents in urban areas. Using remote sensing, geography information system technology and ecosystem services evaluation method, on the basis of analyzing four remote sensing images of Changzhou city, a typical big city of China, in 1991, 1996, 2001 and 2006, the evolution of landscape spatial structure of Changzhou city from 1991 to 2006 was obtained and the change of ecosystem services resulted from land use change was evaluated. Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs Model (InVEST) was used to evaluate the change of total carbon stocks of different land-use types in Changzhou urbanized areas from 1991 to 2011.

Results/Conclusions

The results showed that the proportion of open space (non-built-up area) in Changzhou urban area decreased from 89.2% to 65.1% in past 15 years. From 1991 to 2001, the areas of forests, farmlands and water body reduced at different degrees. Open space in Changzhou city provide many important ecosystem services, such as agricultural and forestry production, climatic regulation, water resource maintaining, soil and water conservation, biodiversity protection, etc. The economic value of ecosystem services provided by lands in Changzhou city reduced 19.3% from 1991 to 2006. The decrease of ecosystem services value provided by agricultural fields was the largest of all and it declined 32.3%.

The dynamics of land use and cover change (LUCC) and subsequent change in terrestrial carbon stocks for different land-use types were concluded that during the study interval, the built-up area of Changzhou city expanded rapidly from 85 km² in 1986, to 800 km² in 2011, with its areal percentage in terrestrial land-use types increased from 5.3% to 49.4% during the same period. The average estimated carbon density and total carbon stocks in Changzhou city decreased from 71.31 Mg C ha^-1 and 11.50 Tg C in 1986, to 49.88 Mg C ha^-1 and 8.09 Tg C in 2011, respectively. This research results showed close correlation between land use and the change of ecosystem services of Changzhou city. This paper can provide scientific methods and decision making basis for the strengthening of ecosystem services in urban areas, land use planning, management and urban sustainable development.