Effect of land-use change and optimization on the ecosystem service values of Jiangsu province, China

Abstract

Abstract Rapid urbanization intensifies land-use transition by shrinking cropland and increasing the land development of land in China, which affects the ecosystem services value (ESV) and causes environmental degradation. To improve the quality of the ecological environment, China has launched a strategy for the construction of an ecological civilization and attempted to build an ecological compensation mechanism. In this study, combining linear optimization model with the conversion of land use and its effects at small regional extent (CLUE-S) model to optimize and quantitatively to simulate land-use change based on embedding to maximize the ESV for land use planning in 2025 in Jiangsu province, a Chinese province that has experienced the greatest land-use transition and ESV loss in China. The results showed that a total loss of 5.76 × 1010 yuan.yr−1 ESV from 2000 to 2015 was due to the conversion of a total of 17.76% of the land in Jiangsu. However, we predicted that the total area of land use will increase by 0.4% in 2025 compared to that in 2015, which will lead to an increase of the ESV by 3.79 × 1010 yuan.yr−1. Cropland and grassland will decrease the most, while woodland, water area and wetland will increase. Moreover, our spatial simulation showed that the regions around the Taihu Lake, the boundary between central and northern Jiangsu, and the inland region of northern Jiangsu will experience great ESV change caused by land-use transition in 2025. We also discussed land use and ecological protection policies. Our simulation results provide a potentially effective guide for implementing ecological compensation mechanisms among sub-regions in Jiangsu province.