Effects of Land Use Change on Ecosystem Services in Arid Area Ecological Migration

Abstract

Ecological migration is the process of increasing the population density in the immigration area and transferring the ecological pressure from emigration area to immigration area. This process may result in significant changes in land use and land cover in the area of immigration and have an important effect on ecosystem services. Therefore, scientifically revealing the effects and differentiation mechanisms of ecological migration on ecosystem services is becoming an important issue related to the implementation of the national ecological migration strategy in China. This study employed the Hongsibu District as a typical example of ecological migration. Hongsibu District is located in the central Ningxia steppe and desert steppe areas. Remote sensing data covering five periods from the period before ecological migration in 1995 and after migration in 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 was used to measure the value of ecosystem services (ESV). A geographical detector model and the value of ecosystem services model were used to diagnose the dynamic mechanism of the effects of land use change on ecosystem services. The results showed that: 1) The development of large-scale ecological resettlement has caused the area of cultivated land and urbanized land area to increase significantly in the area of immigration, while the grass area decreased significantly. 2) The overall value of the Hongsibu ecosystem services increased in a form of a ‘V’. Among them, during the period of 1995–2005, the overall ESV decreased and had an annual rate of change of −0.67%. During the period of development 2005–2015, the ESV increased steadily, with an annual rate of change of 0.79%. 3) The proportion and total ESV in soil formation and protection, waste treatment, and biodiversity conservation of the Hongsibu District decreased from 57.61% in 1995 to 56.17% in 2015, indicating that the region’s ecological regulation function slightly decreased. 4) The ESV in the Hongsibu District, showed a low distribution pattern of ecosystem services increasing from northeast to southwest, and the capacity of three townships, Hongsibu, Taiyangshan, and Liuquan, to provide ecosystem services gradually declined over time. The ecological service function of Xinzhuangji Township and Dahe Township gradually improved. 5) The sensitivity index of the ESV of each land use type was less than 1, indicating that the environment lacks flexibility in providing a strong ESV index in Hongsibu, which shows that the research results are reliable and believable. 6) During the study period, the decisive force of the change of land use on ecosystem services in Hongsibu District was: grassland (0.9934), climate regulation (0.9413), soil formation and protection (0.9321) and waste treatment (0.9241).