Abstract
Knowing the impact of land-use and land-cover (LULC) changes on the distribution of water yield (WY) is essential for water resource management. Using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model, we investigated the spatial-temporal variations of WY from 1990 to 2015 in China’s northern semi-arid region of Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei (Jing-Jin-Ji). We quantified the combined effects of LULC dynamics and climatic variation on WY. Furthermore, we identified the relative contribution of main LULC types to WY. For our study region, the built-up area increased by 35.66% (5380 km2) during the study period. In the meantime, cropland, grassland, and wetland decreased continuously. The expansion of built-up area and decline of vegetated land led to an increase of 1047 million m3 (5.1%) in total WY. The impacts of LULC changes on WY were mainly determined by the biophysical characteristics of LULC composition. Vegetated land has relatively lower WY coefficients due to higher rates of evapotranspiration and water infiltration. Built-up areas and bare land have higher WY coefficients as a result of their impermeable surface. The spatial-temporal analysis of WY with specification of WY coefficients by LULC types can facilitate integrated land-use planning and water resource management.
Highlights
Land-use and land-cover (LULC) change has direct impacts on ecosystems and their associated services, on water yield (WY)
The permutation test showed a close correlation with R2 = 0.98 (p < 0.01), which demonstrated that Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) can be used to simulate the spatial and temporal variation in yearly WY at the regional scale
We simulated the spatial-temporal changes of WY based on climatic variation and LULC changes in the Jing-Jin-Ji region from 1990 to 2015
Summary
Land-use and land-cover (LULC) change has direct impacts on ecosystems and their associated services, on water yield (WY). In response to LULC changes, WY variation reflects the hydrological services of different land ecosystems. Many researchers have explored the effects of LULC changes on WY over a range of spatial and temporal scales [4,6]. These studies have focused on the impact of LULC change on total WY over a certain time span [7,8] and/or WY responses to a typical LULC type, such as forest, cropland, or built-up land (urbanization/commercial land) [9,10,11,12]. Quantifying WY specific to individual LULC type is useful to the after-event analysis, and crucial to improve the predictability of WY responses to LULC dynamics, which will facilitate future integration of LULC planning and water resource management
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