Spatially Explicit Landscape-Level Ecological Risks Induced by Land Use and Land Cover Change in a National Ecologically Representative Region in China

Jian Gong, Jianxin Yang and Wenwu Tang
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Jian Gong: Department of Land Resource Management, School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), 388 Lumo Road, Hongshan District, Wuhan 430074, China
Jianxin Yang: Department of Land Resource Management, School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), 388 Lumo Road, Hongshan District, Wuhan 430074, China
Wenwu Tang: Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223, USA

IJERPH, 2015, vol. 12, issue 11, 1-24

Abstract: Land use and land cover change is driven by multiple influential factors from environmental and social dimensions in a land system. Land use practices of human decision-makers modify the landscape of the land system, possibly leading to landscape fragmentation, biodiversity loss, or environmental pollution—severe environmental or ecological impacts. While landscape-level ecological risk assessment supports the evaluation of these impacts, investigations on how these ecological risks induced by land use practices change over space and time in response to alternative policy intervention remain inadequate. In this article, we conducted spatially explicit landscape ecological risk analysis in Ezhou City, China. Our study area is a national ecologically representative region experiencing drastic land use and land cover change, and is regulated by multiple policies represented by farmland protection, ecological conservation, and urban development. We employed landscape metrics to consider the influence of potential landscape-level disturbance for the evaluation of landscape ecological risks. Using spatiotemporal simulation, we designed scenarios to examine spatiotemporal patterns in landscape ecological risks in response to policy intervention. Our study demonstrated that spatially explicit landscape ecological risk analysis combined with simulation-driven scenario analysis is of particular importance for guiding the sustainable development of ecologically vulnerable land systems.

Keywords: land use and land cover change; landscape ecological risks; ecologically representative region; spatiotemporal simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (24)

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