Abstract
Global climate change and land use change arising from human activities affect the ecosystem service values (ESVs). Such impacts have increasingly become significant, especially in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). Major factors impeding the construction of China’s “ecological security barrier” are shifts in land-use patterns under rapid urbanization, irrational crop and animal husbandry activities, and tourism. In the present study, land use changes in the QTP in recent years were analyzed to determine their impacts on ESVs, followed by simulations of the interactive and evolutionary relationships between land use and ESVs under two scenarios: natural development scenarios and ecological protection scenarios. According to the results, the QTP land-use structure has a small change, and the main land use type is alpine grassland, followed by bare land and woodland. The stability of the major land use types is the key factor responsible for the overall increasing ESV trend. Different regions on the QTP had substantially varied ESVs. The northwest and southeast regions are mostly bare land, which is a concentrated area of low value of ecosystem services. A variety of land use types including grassland and woodland have been found in the humid and semi-humid areas of the central region, so the high value of ecosystem services is concentrated in this area to form a hot spot, with a Z value of 0.63–2.84. Simulations under the natural development and ecological protection scenarios revealed that land use changes guided by ecological policies were more balanced and the associated ESVs were relatively higher than those under the natural development scenario. Under a global climate change context, human activities on the QTP should be better managed. Sustainable development in the region could be facilitated by ensuring synchronization between resource availability and adopted socioeconomic activities.
Highlights
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030) include the establishment of good human–nature relationships and the enhancement of ecosystem service (ES) provision, to ensure the sustenance of economies and livelihoods of communities effectively
Local adjustments occurred in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) land use structure over the 23-year study period, with the two prominent changes being an increase in urban land and desert areas, and a decrease in shrubland and bare land (Figure 3)
ES values (ESVs) in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau), a comprehensive theoretical literature in land science, ecology, and economics is reviewed to establish a conceptual framework of land use transfer matrix and ESVs, and evaluated the change of ecosystem service value under the two scenarios in the future
Summary
The Sustainable Development Goals (SDG 2030) include the establishment of good human–nature relationships and the enhancement of ecosystem service (ES) provision, to ensure the sustenance of economies and livelihoods of communities effectively. Land use activities could adversely affect ecosystem structure and processes, and drive the evolution of such processes and functions [2]. From a global socioeconomic development perspective and ES evolution, land use structures influence the levels and threshold ranges of ESs that have benefits [3], through the modification of factors such as ground vegetation and landscape characteristics. Sustainability 2021, 13, 4079 local industrialization, agriculture, animal husbandry, and tourism—have had considerable impacts on regional and local environments. Such activities constantly alter land surface structure and influence the relationships among components of natural ecosystems, spatial distribution of resources, as well as material circulation. Different regions are affected by different factors and their interaction to different degrees, so the evolution of ES values (ESVs) shows big differentiation in different natural ecological types of areas, which is necessary to optimize and regulate from the policy level
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