Effects of Urbanization-Induced Cultivated Land Loss on Ecosystem Services in the North China Plain

Wei Song,Xiangzheng Deng

doi:10.3390/en8065678

Abstract

Since the implementation of market oriented economic reform in 1978, China has been on the track of rapid urbanization. The unprecedented urbanization in China has resulted in substantial cultivated land loss and rapid expansion of urban areas. The cultivated land loss due to urbanization not only threatens food security in China, but has also led to ecological system degradation to which close attention should be paid. Therefore, we examined the effects of the conversion from cultivated to urban areas on the ecosystem service in the North China Plain on the basis of a net primary productivity based ecosystem service model (NESM) and a buffer comparison method. Cultivated land loss due to urbanization in the North China Plain led to a total loss of ecosystem service value of 34.66% during the period 1988–2008. Urban expansion significantly decreased the ecosystem service function of water conservation (–124.03%), nutrient cycling (–31.91%), gas regulation (−7.18%), and organic production (–7.18%), while it improved the soil conservation function (2.40%). Land use change accounted for 57.40% of the changes in ecosystem service and had a major influence on the changes in nutrient cycling and water conservation. However, climate change mainly determined the changes in gas regulation, organic production, and soil conservation.

Highlights

Humankind is entering an urban era [1,2], and the average urbanization rate of the world is projected to be 67.2% in 2050 [3]
The effects of cultivated land loss on ecosystem service value (ESV) induced by urbanization were paid less attention. Considering these knowledge gaps, we developed a net primary productivity (NPP) based ecosystem service model (NESM) [42,43] and a buffer comparison method to quantitatively assess the effects of cultivated land conversion on ESV in the process of urbanization
Five kinds of ecosystem services were designed in net primary productivity based ecosystem service model (NESM): organic material production, nutrient cycling, soil conservation, water conservation, and gas regulation

Summary

Introduction

Humankind is entering an urban era [1,2], and the average urbanization rate of the world is projected to be 67.2% in 2050 [3]. Urban areas will become the major living environment for most of the world’s population in the future [4,5,6,7]. Urbanization in most developed countries is almost complete; i.e., almost 80% of Europeans already live in urban areas [4], and the urbanization rate in the United States has reached 81.28% [8]. Most developing countries are on the track of rapid urbanization [6,9,10]. Urbanization in China has accelerated at an unprecedented speed

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion