The trend of land-use sustainability around the Changbai Mountain Biosphere Reserve in northeastern China: 1977–2007

Abstract

Extensive land-use and land-cover change, triggered by rapid development of tourism and the expansion of townships, has occurred in the area surrounding the Changbai Mountain Biosphere Reserve (CMBR) in northeast China, a reservoir for distinctive ecosystems and biological diversity. The objective of this study was to examine the land-use changes surrounding the reserve in the context of forest and nature reserve management with the aid of maps from Landsat MSS imagery of 1977 and Landsat TM imagery of 1991 and 2007. The total land area and its change over time for each land-use class were calculated and cell-by-cell change data were used to detect, quantify, and determine the trends in land-use conversions. Results showed that there were large increases in land area for residential, commercial, industrial, and transportation land-use types, whereas the forest area decreased considerably. At the same time, the area under jurisdiction of townships has nearly doubled, with the largest increase in Manjiang. Land-use change was caused by regional population growth as a result of tourism development that triggered the expansion of township boundaries and contributed to shifts in forest management policy. Our study offers land and reserve managers within the CMBR and similar areas a basis for making more informed land-use and management decisions to potentially minimize detrimental ecological impacts of land-use change.

Evaluating Residents’ Perceptions of Nature-Based Tourism with a Factor-Cluster Approach

“…The CMBR was accepted by the World Biosphere Reserve Network in 1979 [65]. In 1982, it was the first Biosphere Reserve in China to encourage tourism development [66]. With the burgeoning tourism industry, both developers and the provincial government have actively engaged in building roads, bridges, and cable car systems to increase tourist capacity [66].…”

“…In 1982, it was the first Biosphere Reserve in China to encourage tourism development [66]. With the burgeoning tourism industry, both developers and the provincial government have actively engaged in building roads, bridges, and cable car systems to increase tourist capacity [66]. As a result, CMBR visitation has grown steadily from 29,021 in 1980 [67] to more than 2,500,000 in 2018 [68].…”

Scenario-Based Pyroclastic Density Current Invasion Maps at Poorly Known Volcanoes: A Case Study from Changbaishan (China/North Korea)

“…Other relevant hazards include earthquakes and the emplacement of ash fall and PDCs. The evaluation of the hazard related to ash dispersion and PDC is of primary importance because about 135,000 people of China and 31,000 of North Korea live within 50 km from the Changbaishan caldera, and each year, 2,000,000 tourists visit the Changbaishan volcano National Reserve, a part of the UNESCO Man and Biosphere program [55] (http://www.stats.gov.cn/english/statisticaldata/censusdata/) [56]. In this framework, Lee et al [57] and Yu et al [58,59] model the ash dispersion for eruptions with VEI up to 7 and show that, due to the prevailing winds, ash deposition may heavily affect China and North Korea, with also consequences for the aviation routes and agricultural areas in South Korea and north Japan.…”

Complex Effects of Telecouplings on Forest Dynamics: An Agent-Based Modeling Approach

“…Previous studies (e.g., Chen et al 2012a, Pulido-Fernandez et al 2015, Dai et al 2012 suggest that labor migration and nature-based tourism can have substantial impacts on the human and natural systems in rural areas. Many rural residents who traditionally relied on subsistence agricultural livelihoods, are now shifting to off-farm economic opportunities made possible by these two telecouplings (Kramer, Urquhart and Schmitt 2009).…”