Incorporating ecosystem services into agricultural management based on land use/cover change in Northeastern China

Abstract

Land use/cover change (LUCC) in Northeastern China (NEC) has dynamically changed over the past several decades. However, few LUCC studies have examined the value of ecosystem services (VES) in major grain production areas involved in national food production. Measuring this process and incorporating VES into agricultural management can provide a scientific basis for environmental management and sustainable agricultural development. Thus, taking NEC as an example, based on modified value coefficients, we estimated changes in VES in response to LUCC over the past 25 years (1990–2015), and changed VES over this period were incorporated into agricultural management. We found that VES decreased by 27.24% and increased by 61.57% during the periods of 1990–2000 and 2000–2015, respectively. In addition, total VES increased by 17.55%. The decrease of VES during the period of 1990–2000 resulted from cultivated land reclamation, forest and wetland degradation. VES increase was influenced by land retirement and afforestation programs implemented in NEC. When changes in VES were incorporated into agricultural management, small farms appeared to be going down remarkably compared with those for mid-sized and large farms. Prudent agricultural management should be considered for mid-sized and large farms to ensure greater ES-related benefits to humans.