Land Use Scenario Simulation and Ecosystem Service Management for Different Regional Development Models of the Beibu Gulf Area, China

Abstract

Land use change is an important way for human activities to affect ecosystems. Based on the land use demands and policies, the simulation of future land use changes under different scenarios can test the rationality of socio-economic and policy-oriented land use changes. In this study, we set three scenarios of regular growth, ecological protection, and ecotourism development in 2030 for the Beibu Gulf area, China. We simulated the spatial distribution and evolution characteristics of the future landscape pattern using the Scenario Generator Rule Based Module of InVEST. Meanwhile, the ecosystem service value (ESV) was estimated by the improved unit area value equivalent method to reveal the trend of ESVs under different regional development models. The results indicated that the land use changes in the Beibu Gulf during 1999–2014 showed significant spatial heterogeneity. The farmland was mainly distributed in Beihai, the forestland was located in Fangchenggang, while the orchard was concentrated on Qinzhou. Due to economic construction and urban expansion, construction land and aquaculture land were gradually growing, while farmland and mud flat continued to decrease. Between 2014 and 2030, the total ESV decreased in the regular growth scenario and gradually increased in the ecological protection scenario and ecotourism development scenario. In addition, by comparing the three scenarios, the ecotourism development scenario is a more reasonable model for Guangxi Beibu Gulf area, which realized the trade-off between tourism development and resource conservation. Therefore, regional planners should not only consider maximizing ESVs when planning for ecosystem services, but also strive to maintain a reasonable structure of ecosystem services. Some suggestions were provided in this paper at the macro level and the local development model level respectively, which offered some references for the rational allocation of land resources, ecological environmental protection and ecotourism development in the coastal area of Beibu Gulf.

Landscape Pattern and Ecological Risk Assessment in Guangxi Based on Land Use Change

“…Areas with high ecological risk areas are concentrated in Laibin, Guigang, and Nanning in central Guangxi, Qinzhou, Beihai, and Fangchenggang and other areas in southern Guangxi, while areas with low ecological risk are mainly concentrated in northern Baise, Hechi, and other areas in the north. Importantly, the spatial distribution of ecological risks is closely related to regional natural conditions and socio-economic conditions [59], with different natural conditions determining which industries are suitable for regional development that, in turn, will shape land use and human activities in that region [60]. The southern and central regions of Guangxi have medium-high temperatures, low levels of precipitation, low elevation and gradual slopes, high population, high GDP, and high distributions of construction land and unused land.…”

Impacts of Human Activities on Ecosystem Service Value in Arid and Semi-Arid Ecological Regions of China

“…These land-use datasets with 30 m resolution were developed in 2000, 2010, 2020, respectively, included land categories into cultivated land, construction land, forest land, grassland, water bodies, wetland, deserts, and other 7 types of land use (Table 1). The accuracy of the 7 classes of land use was above 94.3% [26]. Population density and GDP data were from the three years of 2000, 2010, and 2020 and were sourced from the Resource and Environment Science Data Cloud Platform of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (https://www.resdc.cn/ accessed on 20 October 2020).…”

Spatio–Temporal Heterogeneity of Urban Expansion and Population Growth in China

“…Under the current urban–rural land system, financial system and performance evaluation mechanism, “land finance” and ‘‘land to attract investment’’ serve as the core strategies in delivering large amounts of ‘‘bonus’’ and promoting economic growth [ 15 ]. However, regional economic development and land urbanization have led to the expansion of construction land and destruction of the ecological environment [ 16 ]. Therefore, economic, land use, and ecological protection need to be weighed simultaneously in order to achieve sustainable urbanization.…”

“…However, existing studies [ 8 , 19 , 20 ] have proved that China’s population urbanization lags behind land urbanization which has brought some problems such as rural hollowing, the further increase of the urban–rural gap, the abandonment of arable land, etc. Meanwhile, the increasingly prominent human–land conflicts brought by rapid urbanization have been manifested in many aspects, such as increased soil erosion [ 21 ], decreased soil fertility [ 22 ], reduced cropland area [ 16 ], accelerated degradation of ecosystem functions [ 23 ], etc. The spatio–temporal relationship between population and construction land connects the social and physical aspects of urbanization, and determines how urbanization interacts with many environmental changes [ 24 , 25 , 26 ].…”