Simulation of Spatiotemporal Land Use Changes for Integrated Model of Socioeconomic and Ecological Processes in China

Honglei Jiang,Lingfei Wang,Yinghui Liu,Yongmei Huang,Mengxi Guan,Xia Xu

doi:10.3390/su11133627

Abstract

Land use/land cover changes (LULCC) have been affected by ecological processes as well as socioeconomic and human activities, resulting in several environmental problems. The study of the human–environment system combined with land use/land cover dynamics has received considerable attention in recent decades. We aimed to provide an integrated model that couples land use, socioeconomic influences, and ecosystem processes to explore the future dynamics of land use under two scenarios in China. Under Scenario A, the yield of grain continues to increase, and under Scenario B, the yield of grain remains constant. This study created a LULCC model by integrating a simple global socioeconomic model, a Terrestrial ecosystem simulator (TESim), and a land use allocation model. The results were analyzed by comparing spatiotemporal differences under predicted land use conditions in the two alternative scenarios. The simulation results showed patterns that varied between the two scenarios. In Scenario A, grassland will expand in the future and a large reduction in cropland will be observed. In Scenario B, the augmented expansion of cropland and a drastic shrinkage of forest area will be the main land use conversion features. Scenario A is more promising because more land is preserved for ecological restoration and urbanization, which is in line with China’s Grain for Green Program. Economic development should be based on ecological protection. The results are expected to add insight to sustainable land use development and regional natural resource management in China.

Highlights

Research on LULCC has attracted the attention of many scholars due to its important role in global climate change, food security, soil degradation, and biodiversity [1,2,3,4]
We identified all of the ch0anCgroepslanind thFeorefsut tuGrreaspslaenrd caBupilitt-uap conOtshuerms ption by comparing developed countries or regions, such as the United States of America (USA) and the European Union (EU), and the predictions were divided into two categories: plants and animals
The results indicate that in the simulated demand, the cropland and built-up areas are relatively similar to the corresponding classes in the actual land use demand for 2010, but the area of forest and grassland was overestimated by 8.2% and 5.8%, respectively

Summary

Introduction

Research on LULCC has attracted the attention of many scholars due to its important role in global climate change, food security, soil degradation, and biodiversity [1,2,3,4]. LULCC models are powerful tools for analyzing driving forces and processes, understanding causes and consequences, and projecting possible future land use patterns [15,16]. It has been successfully applied to modeling land use change explicitly at different scales [24,25,26]. These spatial allocation models are primarily used to determine the pattern and process of LULCC and project the locations of future changes; it is still difficult to simulate the effect of socioeconomic influences on LULCC, because of a large number of interacting factors that need to be taken into account, such as environmental changes, scientific and technological progress, policy changes [27]. Dynamic ecological processes are rarely involved in these models, and most currently published studies have used a static soil property database as an indicator of ecological effects to simulate simplified landscapes [28,29]

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Conclusion