Impacts of changes in climate and landscape pattern on soil conservation services in a dryland landscape

Abstract

Changes in climatic factors and landscape pattern are generally considered the main drivers of soil conservation services (SC). However, the influence mechanism of climatic factors and landscape pattern on SC is scale and landscape context-dependent. Disentangling the role of individual and joint climatic and landscape pattern factors in affecting the variation of SC is important to making a rational land use development scheme. In this study, Ordos, a typical arid and semiarid region of China suffering serious soil loss in terms of water erosion and wind erosion resulting from climate change and unreasonable human activities, was selected to analyze the changing trends of soil conservation services through water erosion suppression and wind erosion suppression (hereafter called SCWA and SCWI) from 2001 to 2016. We further explored spatial heterogeneity of the impacts of various drivers on SC using stepwise regression and geographically weighted regression (GWR) models at the watershed and township scales, respectively. The results showed that SCWA did not change significantly, while SCWI had a downward trend. The effects of driving factors on SC varied substantially across the study area, with climatic factors dominating. As the scale changed from watershed to township, the driving mechanism was explained more comprehensively and effectively, and the impacts of landscape pattern became more evident. Given the effectiveness and operability of landscape management, the township was suggested to serve as the best control unit when making landscape governance schemes in terms of improving SCWA and SCWI. The results of this study are insightful for other regions with a fragile ecological environment to restore degraded ecosystems on the one hand and utilize land resources more sustainably on the other hand.