Abstract
Water can carry or overturn a boat. Natural resources form the foundation of human survival and development. However, land use change caused by human urban civilization has damaged the natural environment and in turn threatened the continuation of human civilization. Accordingly, it is crucial to analyze the impacts of human activities on land use change and consequent dynamics of ecosystem service value (ESV). For the sustainable development of human beings, an investigation should be conducted to explore what type of land use behavior will be considerably beneficial to improve our relationship with the natural environment. This study analyzes the spatial–temporal dynamics of ESV of 148 counties in the Yangtze River Delta in China over three five-year periods (2000–2015) and examines the influence of socioeconomic forces and policy implications. Exploratory spatial data analysis and spatial regression were applied to facilitate the analysis. Results show that the averages of the ESV change ratios of the 148 counties in each of the aforementioned periods are −0.667%, −2.690%, and −4.668%, respectively. The number of counties that showed an ESV loss trend in the three periods are 72 (48.6%), 125 (84.4%), and 139 (93.9%), respectively. In terms of spatial pattern, ESV change demonstrates the spatial distribution characteristic of “high loss spreading from the northeast to the middle and west” with a tendency to strengthen spatial agglomeration. Results of the spatial regression analysis determine the overwhelming importance of population growth and economic advancement. The results also indicate that the development mode characterized by industrial structure, capital input, and technology upgrades can exert considerable influence on socioeconomic development, thereby affecting the change of ESV. Moreover, the constraints of policy substantially affect the changes of ESV from 2010 to 2015. Policy makers should consider the relationship between land use patterns and the ESV variation in different development stages to formulate appropriate measures, thereby reducing or preventing the loss of ecological service value and promoting sustainable development.
Highlights
Research on land-use and land-cover (LULC) change over the last decade is one of the core projects in the context of the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP) and International Geosphere–Biosphere Program (IGBP)
The results show that the ecosystem service value (ESV) loss of each region in Yangtze River Delta (YRD) shows an apparent characteristic of spatial agglomeration
The YRD region encounters the major challenge of achieving sustainable use of natural resources in the rapid urbanization development
Summary
Research on land-use and land-cover (LULC) change over the last decade is one of the core projects in the context of the International Human Dimensions Program (IHDP) and International Geosphere–Biosphere Program (IGBP). Land use patterns include quantity, structure, and spatial pattern [5,6], as well as land use quality, management mode, and productive ability [7,8]. Land use changes and transitions comprise a dynamic process that embeds the evolution of landscape structure and land use function. The recent development of geographic data analysis methods, including spatial autoregression, neural network [13], spectrum analysis [14], time series analysis [15], cellular automata models [16] and so on, has helped to uncover spatial-temporal dynamics of land use transition and to reach better explanations and predictions of land use evolution
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