The Impacts of Land Use Spatial Form Changes on Carbon Emissions in Qinghai–Tibet Plateau from 2000 to 2020: A Case Study of the Lhasa Metropolitan Area

Abstract

The ecological contribution of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau has received considerable attention as a result of the increased focus on global climate change and the continuous growth of carbon emissions in all countries. In this study, we proposed a method and measured the carbon emissions from land use in the Lhasa metropolitan area from 2000 to 2020, based on image interpretation data, by exploiting corrected carbon emission factors in different land types from the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. We studied the impact of construction land form on carbon emissions using the spatial lag model (SLM) and the spatial error model (SEM), and the results show that the Lhasa metropolitan area’s carbon emissions showed an overall increasing trend from 2000 to 2020, with the characteristics of “slow acceleration–slight deceleration–acceleration”, with a deceleration period from 2005 to 2015. As a result, the construction land has a relatively low capacity, but it constitutes about 90% of all emissions; moreover, carbon emissions from cultivated land cover about 9%. The rate of spatial expansion of carbon emissions from land use is significantly slower in the Lhasa metropolitan area, yet the spatial expansion of carbon emissions has a clear direction and increases in the north and west of Lhasa. The carbon emissions from land use in the Lhasa metropolitan area is characterized by “one core, many points, and multiple belts” in spatial distribution. The changing of spatial forms of construction land has a significant impact on carbon emissions. Finally, we depicted the impact logic of land use pattern on carbon emissions and provided policy and management recommendations that were both feasible and reasonable.