The Effects of Rural Settlement Evolution on the Surrounding Land Ecosystem Service Values: A Case Study in the Eco-Fragile Areas, China

Dongmei Li,Dongyan Wang,Shuwen Zhang,Wenbo Tian,Hong Li

doi:10.3390/ijgi6020049

Abstract

General declines in ecosystem service values (ESV) are acknowledged worldwide; however, rather few studies have quantitatively analyzed the interrelationship between changing rural settlements and values of ecosystem services. This study used the county of Tongyu in West Jilin Province, China, as a case study to analyze how changing rural settlements impact the values of ecosystem services on surrounding land in the eco-fragile areas during 1997–2010. Quantitative analytical techniques mainly include the buffer analysis and an ecosystem services valuation. The results show that as the area of rural settlements increased in 1997–2010, the structure of land ecosystems had changed significantly during this time period, causing a change in ESV that was observed with a decline by 1.87 billion yuan and above 20%. The degradation of grasslands, wetlands, and water areas, as well as the farmland reclamation, were the main drivers of the decreases in ESV. The effects of the increased rural settlements on the distribution and variation of ESV were larger than the decreased rural settlements, especially the new rural settlements whose effect was largest, and the effect of changing rural settlements on the values of ecosystem services on the surrounding land was significant in proximity to these settlements. In conclusion, the effects of rural settlement evolution on the natural environment were obvious in the eco-fragile areas. Thus the encroachment of rural settlements still requires enhanced supervision in land management practices, and the scale and spatial distribution of rural settlements should be befittingly allocated in the eco-fragile areas to reduce the disturbance to the ecosystem.

Highlights

The concept of ecosystem services began in the early 1970s, referring to the ecological conditions and ecological processes through which the natural ecosystem and its components maintained and satisfied the natural environment ecosystem condition and the relevant effects for human survival [1]
This study investigated how changing rural settlements impact the values of ecosystem services on the surrounding land in the ecologically fragile areas, providing empirical research of the benefit transfer study [35], as well as scientific references for decision-making in terms of land-use planning and land management
The increases and decreases of rural settlements coexisted in the space, and rural settlements significantly increased in the regions with good locational conditions and economic conditions

Summary

Introduction

The concept of ecosystem services began in the early 1970s, referring to the ecological conditions and ecological processes through which the natural ecosystem and its components maintained and satisfied the natural environment ecosystem condition and the relevant effects for human survival [1]. Human activities will affect the natural ecosystem and its services through changing the land-use structure and spatial pattern, changing the land cover [5,6,7,8,9]. In the tradeoff of economic development and environmental sustainability, the effects of human activities on ecosystem services cannot be ignored. There are such case studies in which the variations in ecosystem service values associated with land-use changes due to demographic factors, urbanization, economic conditions, and different scale policies are assessed [6,8,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22]. The case studies of land planning, land evaluation, and land management containing ecosystem services research begin to appear, but the policies primarily for the changes in ecosystem services are still lacking, especially in eco-fragile areas [23,24,25,26,27,28]

Methods

Results

Conclusion