Impacts of Land-Use and Climate Change on Ecosystem Service in Eastern Tibetan Plateau, China

Abstract

Past years have witnessed the transformation of land use at a high frequency and a warmer and drier climate in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau region. To fully understand the spatial-temporal variation of ecosystem services against the changing global backdrop and to provide scientific ecosystem management measures for decision-making, a study was conducted to investigate the major ecosystem services: water yield, soil conservation and crop production from 1990 to 2015 in the Eastern Tibetan Plateau region. Three scenarios-climate change only, land use change only and both land use and climate change-were included in this study to analyze the response of ES to the above-mentioned global changes. The results show that (1) the total quantity of ES reduced in all the three scenarios, the annual ES change was scenarioII < scenarioIII < scenarioI and the periodical characteristics are present in this region; (2) the ES change in spatial distribution varied with different climate change patterns and land use transfer directions; (3) the ES composition of each ecosystem varied with different driving scenarios and different responses of the forest and wetland on climate change and land use changes were observed. Moreover, the trade-off under land use change and climate change respectively was observed in this study. Based on the results, we recommend that the local government take this trade-off and climate change into account when making decisions, continue with desertification control and improve the quality of grassland as well as forests-these efforts should enable us to achieve sustainable development of human beings and the natural ecosystem.

Influence of meteorological factors on ecosystem services value: a case study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, China

“…Some studies have shown that climate change was important factor affecting ESV [28][29][30]. The above researches can draw preliminary qualitative or quantitative conclusions that meteorological factors have influence on ESV.…”

The spatial-temporal distributions of controlling factors on vegetation growth in Tibet Autonomous Region, Southwestern China

“…This study also reveals the scattered pixels with negative NDVI trend (mostly distributed along the Yalunzangbu river), implying the ecological effects of land cover change, grassland degradation, urbanization, deforestation and desertification (Cui andGraf 2009, Shen et al 2012). Therefore, the ecological service might have reduced in eastern region (Tang et al 2018), despite the regional climate warming and wetting over the past decades.…”

Future Impacts of Climate Change and Land Use on Multiple Ecosystem Services in a Rapidly Urbanizing Agricultural Basin, China

“…In addition, the changes in the two nutrient services were opposite in the land use alone and combined conditions, which suggested that distinct differentiations existed in the mechanisms that altered the nitrogen and phosphorus services under these conditions. The change of land use type, patterns, and intensity affects ESs supply through the corresponding ecological processes changes [4]. Previous studies have indicated that cultivated land has a primary positive impact on nitrogen loading while construction land mainly causes the increase of phosphorus loading [49,88].…”

“…For the WS and SR services, the effects of climate change alone and the combined impacts in the future (Tables 3 and 4) were more remarkable than the effects of land use alone ( Table 2), indicating that climate change is the primary driver of the changes in these services. Climate change influences the hydrological process and moisture-energy distribution directly or indirectly [4], resulting in the two services changes. In terms of temporal variation, SR change was similar to the precipitation change trend.…”

“…Ecosystem services (ESs) have drawn considerable attention since the publication of the research by Costanza (1997) [1], and numerous studies have been carried out to quantify and map the supply of ESs [2,3]. The circulation of material and flow of energy on Earth are altered with climate change, population growth, technological progress, and urbanization [4], which complicate the spatial patterns and temporal changes in ESs. Understanding the mechanisms that drive these changes is essential to maintain ecosystems as dynamic and adaptive systems to promote the supply of ESs [5].…”