Effects of urban land use transitions on ecosystem services: Implication on Chinese urban planning

Abstract

Urban land use transitions along with the rapid urbanization development cause obvious negative effects on the local ecological system. This paper explored the dynamic patterns of land use in central China’s largest city Wuhan, using high-resolution Landsat Thematic Mapper (TM) data in 1990, 2000 and 2010. The aggregate ecosystem services value, its dynamics, and spatial features were discussed based on the equivalent value per unit area approach, with the revision of Xie et al.’s (2015) unit parameters, adapted to Wuhan’s local situation. The results indicated that Wuhan’s ecosystem services value had been experiencing a continuous decrease during 1990 and 2000 and the following decade. The decrease was mainly due to urban expansion. However, Wuhan’s ecosystem services value decreased less between 2000 and 2010 with a much faster urban expansion pace than those in the former decade. The results illustrated that urban development severely affected ponds, rivers/lakes in their contribution to the ecosystem services that they naturally provided. Ponds and rivers/lakes contributed importantly to urban ecosystem services, even with a small proportion of area. Farmland contributed highly to urban expansion space as well as highly to the loss of related ecosystem services such as food provision and nutrient cycle maintenance. Forest land followed with an important contribution to climate regulation, soil conservation and waste regulation. The optimization of land use structure and configuration could improve urban ecosystem services. The authors conclude that even though the awareness of ecological resources conservation and sustainable development planning is emphasized, the practices are still in a challenge. The integration of ecosystem services dynamics to urban planning is an essential way that the large cities of China can realize sustainable development during its rapid urbanization.