Land Use/Land Cover Change Modeling and the Prediction of Subsequent Changes in Ecosystem Service Values in a Coastal Area of China, the Su-Xi-Chang Region

Eshetu Yirsaw, Wei Wu, Xiaoping Shi, Habtamu Temesgen and Belew Bekele
Additional contact information
Eshetu Yirsaw: College of Land Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Wei Wu: College of Land Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Habtamu Temesgen: College of Land Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China
Belew Bekele: College of Land Management, Nanjing Agricultural University, Nanjing 210095, China

Sustainability, 2017, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-17

Abstract: Monitoring the impact of current Land Use/Land Cover (LULC) management practices on future Ecosystem Services (ESs) provisioning has been emphasized because of the effect of such practices on ecological sustainability. We sought to model and predict the impacts of future LULC changes on subsequent changes in Ecosystem Service Value (ESV) in fragile environments undergoing complex LULC changes, Su-Xi-Chang region. After mapping and classifying the LULC for the years 1990, 2000, and 2010 using GIS and remote sensing, a Cellular Automata (CA)–Markov model was employed to model future LULC changes for the year 2020. ESV was predicted using the projected LULC data and the modified ES coefficients adopted by Xie et al. (2003). The projected results of the changes in LULC reveal that construction land expanded extensively, mainly at the expense of farmland, wetland, and water bodies. The predicted results of the ESVs indicate that water bodies and farmland are the dominant LULC categories, accounting for 90% of the total ESV. Over the study period, ESVs were diminished by 7.3915 billion CNY, mostly because of the decrease in farmland, water bodies, and wetland. A reasonable land use plan should be developed with an emphasis on controlling construction land encroachment on farmland, wetlands, and water bodies. The rules of ecological protection should be followed in LULC management to preserve ecological resources.

Keywords: Land Use/Land Cover change; Ecosystem Services Value; ecological protection; Su-Xi-Chang region (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2017
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/7/1204/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/9/7/1204/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:9:y:2017:i:7:p:1204-:d:104136

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().