Is Expansion or Regulation more Critical for Existing Protected Areas? A Case Study on China’s Eco-Redline Policy in Chongqing Capital

Benhui Zhu and Shizuka Hashimoto
Additional contact information
Benhui Zhu: Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8654, Japan
Shizuka Hashimoto: Graduate School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, The University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-8654, Japan

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 10, 1-25

Abstract: Protecting areas of important ecological value is one of the main approaches to safeguarding the Earth’s ecosystems. However, the long-term effectiveness of protected areas is often uncertain. Focusing on China’s ecological conservation redline policy (Eco-redline policy) introduced in recent years, this study attempted to examine the effectiveness of alternative policy interventions and their implications on future land-use and land-cover (LULC) patterns. A scenario analysis was employed to elucidate the implications of different policy interventions for Chongqing capital, one of the most representative cities in China. These interventions considered the spatial extent of Eco-redline areas (ERAs) and the management intensity within these areas. LULC data for two different periods from 2000 (first year) to 2010 (end year) were derived from satellite images and then used for future (2050) LULC projections, incorporating the various policy interventions. Furthermore, several landscape indices, including the shape complexity, contrast, and aggregation of forest patches were calculated for each scenario. After comparing the scenarios, our analysis suggests that the current extent of ERAs may not be sufficient, although their management intensity is. Therefore, we suggest that during the optimization of the Eco-redline policy, ERAs are gradually increased while maintaining their current management intensity.

Keywords: protected area; eco-redline policy; scenario analysis; land-use projection; landscape index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/10/1084/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/10/10/1084/ (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:jlands:v:10:y:2021:i:10:p:1084-:d:655834

Access Statistics for this article

Land is currently edited by Ms. Carol Ma

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