Mitigating Spatial Conflict of Land Use for Sustainable Wetlands Landscape in Li-Xia-River Region of Central Jiangsu, China

Yan Sun,Gang-Jun Liu,Yuanyuan Chang,Fu Chen,Xiaoping Ge,Junna Liu

doi:10.3390/su132011189

Yan Sun, Gang-Jun Liu + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/su132011189

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Abstract

Li-Xia-river Wetlands make up the biggest freshwater marsh in East China. Over the last decades, social and economic developments have dramatically altered the natural wetlands landscape. Mitigating land use conflict is beneficial to protect wetlands, maintain ecosystem services, and coordinate local socioeconomic development. This study employed multi-source data and GIS-based approaches to construct a composite index model with the purpose of quantitatively evaluating the intensity of land use conflict in Li-Xia-river Wetlands from 1978 to 2018. The results showed that the percentage of the wetlands’ area declined from 20.3% to 15.6%, with an overall reduction rate of 23.2%. The mean index of land use conflict increased from 0.15 to 0.35, which suggests that the conflict intensity changed from “no conflict” to “mild conflict.” The number of severe conflict units increased by about 25 times. A conspicuous spatial variation of land use conflict was observed across different periods, although taking land for agricultural activities was the overriding reason for wetlands reduction. However, in recent years, urban sprawl has posed the greatest threat to Li-Xia-river Wetlands. Coordinating land use conflict and formulating a practical strategy are the initial imperative steps to mitigate the threat to wetlands.

Highlights

Wetlands play a pivotal role in the global ecosystem, especially in biodiversity protection [1,2,3]
Land use conflict is a widespread problem in the man–land relationship, which results from competition for the limited land resources or the imbalance of land allocation
Land use conflict is a widespread problem in the man–land relationship, which results from competition for the limited land resources or the imbalance of land allocation [24,72]

Summary

Introduction

Wetlands play a pivotal role in the global ecosystem, especially in biodiversity protection [1,2,3]. The recession of coastal mangroves in tropical regions [18] and disappearance of mid-latitude plateau lakes [19] and high-latitude peatlands [20] are all part of the emblematic picture of global wetland loss. The natural ecological process has been drastically changed, and the loss of biodiversity is shocking [21,22,23]. This occurrence is regarded as land use conflict, manifested as the spatial scarcity of land resources and spatial externality [24,25,26,27,28]. Human activities are considered the main reason for wetland recession [29,30,31,32]

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Conclusion