Qualifying Land Use and Land Cover Dynamics and Their Impacts on Ecosystem Service in Central Himalaya Transboundary Landscape Based on Google Earth Engine

Changjun Gu, Yili Zhang, Linshan Liu, Lanhui Li, Shicheng Li, Binghua Zhang, Bohao Cui and Mohan Kumar Rai
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Changjun Gu: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
Yili Zhang: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
Linshan Liu: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
Lanhui Li: Fujian Key Laboratory of Pattern Recognition and Image Understanding, Xiamen University of Technology, Xiamen 361024, China
Shicheng Li: Department of Land Resource Management, School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China
Binghua Zhang: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
Bohao Cui: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China
Mohan Kumar Rai: Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China

Land, 2021, vol. 10, issue 2, 1-21

Abstract: Land use and land cover (LULC) changes are regarded as one of the key drivers of ecosystem services degradation, especially in mountain regions where they may provide various ecosystem services to local livelihoods and surrounding areas. Additionally, ecosystems and habitats extend across political boundaries, causing more difficulties for ecosystem conservation. LULC in the Kailash Sacred Landscape (KSL) has undergone obvious changes over the past four decades; however, the spatiotemporal changes of the LULC across the whole of the KSL are still unclear, as well as the effects of LULC changes on ecosystem service values (ESVs). Thus, in this study we analyzed LULC changes across the whole of the KSL between 2000 and 2015 using Google Earth Engine (GEE) and quantified their impacts on ESVs. The greatest loss in LULC was found in forest cover, which decreased from 5443.20 km 2 in 2000 to 5003.37 km 2 in 2015 and which mainly occurred in KSL-Nepal. Meanwhile, the largest growth was observed in grassland (increased by 548.46 km 2 ), followed by cropland (increased by 346.90 km 2 ), both of which mainly occurred in KSL-Nepal. Further analysis showed that the expansions of cropland were the major drivers of the forest cover change in the KSL. Furthermore, the conversion of cropland to shrub land indicated that farmland abandonment existed in the KSL during the study period. The observed forest degradation directly influenced the ESV changes in the KSL. The total ESVs in the KSL decreased from 36.53 × 10 8 USD y −1 in 2000 to 35.35 × 10 8 USD y −1 in 2015. Meanwhile, the ESVs of the forestry areas decreased by 1.34 × 10 8 USD y −1 . This shows that the decrease of ESVs in forestry was the primary cause to the loss of total ESVs and also of the high elasticity. Our findings show that even small changes to the LULC, especially in forestry areas, are noteworthy as they could induce a strong ESV response.

Keywords: land use and land cover; ecosystem service value; Google Earth Engine (GEE); forest fragmentation; transboundary landscape; Himalaya (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: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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