Landscape spatial changes associated with rapid urbanization in Shenzhen,China

Rapid urbanization and a building boom in Chinese cities, together with the increase in human disturbances in ecosystems, have resulted in a range of ecological and land-use problems. The formulation of policies relating to urban land use requires adequate understanding of the landscape dynamics. The objective of the study was to describe spatial patterns and dynamic changes of the regional landscape of Shenzhen in the past 20 years. Based on MSS & TM images from 1978, 1986, 1990, 1995 and 1999, a landscape classification map of Shenzhen was constructed. Three kinds of spatial pattern indices, including landscape diversity, spatial configuration and characteristics of patches, as well as a human disturbance index, were examined using models and GIS. In the past two decades, the regional landscape in Shenzhen has changed dramatically, from a typical agricultural landscape to a rapidly urbanizing landscape. The gradual reduction in the cultivated land area and the dramatic increase in the built-up areas illustrate this progress clearly. Indices for the landscape spatial pattern have changed substantially. Some of the changes, reflecting the reasonable control of urban planning on the regional landscape, are the consequence of careful planning, but many of them are the result of disordered human disturbances that have occurred during the rapid urbanization process. These findings are helpful to future landscape development and land-use planning.     

Current situation and development of Chinese urban forestry

This paper introduces Chinese urban forestry research in terms of the concept, forest types, ecosystem services, spatial structure, planning and construction, assessment and management. Modern Chinese urban forest had a close relationship with traditional landscape architecture. Urban forest services had been quantified in some case cities, and determined by urban forest spatial patterns and internal structures. Based on landscape ecology and urban planning, urban forest spatial patterns have been analysed and planned rationally in some cities. However, studies on urban forestry generally lack long-term, continuous and systemic observations, as well as in-depth research on ecological processes and mechanisms. The development trends in urban forestry in China might include extensive application of '3S' technology, research on the relationship between urban forest landscape spatial patterns and their ecological effects, economic assessment, ecological and economic benefits and studies on the negative effects of pollutants.     

Plant-trait-based modeling assessment of ecosystem-service sensitivity to land-use change

Evidence is accumulating that the continued provision of essential ecosystem services is vulnerable to land-use change. Yet, we lack a strong scientific basis for this vulnerability as the processes that drive ecosystem-service delivery often remain unclear. In this paper, we use plant traits to assess ecosystem-service sensitivity to land-use change in subalpine grasslands. We use a trait-based plant classification (plant functional types, PFTs) in a landscape modeling platform to model community dynamics under contrasting but internally consistent land-use change scenarios. We then use predictive models of relevant ecosystem attributes, based on quantitative plant traits, to make projections of ecosystem-service delivery. We show that plant traits and PFTs are effective predictors of relevant ecosystem attributes for a range of ecosystem services including provisioning (fodder), cultural (land stewardship), regulating (landslide and avalanche risk), and supporting services (plant diversity). By analyzing the relative effects of the physical environment and land use on relevant ecosystem attributes, we also show that these ecosystem services are most sensitive to changes in grassland management, supporting current agri-environmental policies aimed at maintaining mowing of subalpine grasslands in Europe.     

盐池北部风沙区土地利用格局变化对沙漠化的影响

以盐池北部风沙区为研究区域,利用1989、1995、2000、2007年土地利用现状图,借助地理信息系统软件提取有关格局分析的基础数据,基于景观生态学原理,构造主要土地利用类型和沙地景观格局指数,探讨不同时段内盐池北部风沙区土地利用格局变化对沙化景观的影响。结果表明：（1）沙地景观在1995年之前不断扩张,1995年以后开始减少,集中连片沙地被零星分布的小沙化斑块取代;（2）林地和草地经历了先减少后增大的过程,土地利用格局变化中,中、低覆盖度草地和灌木林地变动性大;中、低覆盖度草地、耕地、灌木林地不稳定性程度较高;（3）受农作活动影响,尤其在灌溉条件较好区域,草地沙化明显,而灌木林能起到很好的防沙作用;（4）盐池北部风沙区土地利用格局特征指标与沙地面积呈负相关,随着特征指标增大沙化面积减小。土地利用格局变化能够综合反映相应时段内的人类活动结果,以此为切入点研究其对沙漠化的影响,有利于揭示沙漠化的驱动机制。     

基于遥感与GIS的黄河三角洲绿色空间生态服务价值评估

基于黄河三角洲1987、1997和2007年的TM遥感影像解译数据和野外调查结果,得到研究区三个年度的土地利用空间分布图。然后从土地利用的角度重新审视绿色空间的概念和内涵,建立基于土地利用类型的绿色空间生态评估体系,分析黄河三角洲地区的绿色空间生态服务价值及其变化情况。研究结果表明,1987—2007年间黄河三角洲地区绿色空间土地利用变化显著,其中,水体面积增加明显,农田、林地面积略有增加,湿地和草地面积显著减少,未利用地面积略有减少。土地利用面积的变化直接影响到其生态服务价值的变化,研究期间湿地生态服务价值减少了77.72亿元,草地减少9.00亿元,未利用地减少0.16亿元;水体的生态服务价值增加54.54亿元,农田和林地共增加3.41亿元。研究区绿色空间生态服务价值呈逐年减少的趋势,20年间研究区生态服务价值减少了28.94亿元。通过对绿色空间单项生态服务价值功能重要性进行评价,研究表明黄河三角洲地区单项生态服务价值以湿地、农田和水体占主要地位,这与各单项生态系统的面积及其单位生态服务价值量有关。     

吴江市土地利用变化及其生态效应

利用1993、2000和2004年吴江市的遥感影像,在GIS和RS支持下,通过构建土地利用转移矩阵对土地利用变化进行分析,并对其产生的生态效应进行研究。结果表明,吴江市的耕地基底向建设用地基底转化,生态系统结构的多样性和均匀度降低,景观整体形状趋于规则;生态系统功能退化,耕地的减少以及建设用地面积的增加是导致总价值减少的主导力量,而水域生态服务价值的增加是阻止其显著减少的原因;水源涵养和废物处理功能贡献度最大,超过总价值的50%;汾湖镇所占生态服务价值比重最高,分别为24.2%、25.21%2、5.13%,桃源镇所占比重最低。     

Economic-based projections of future land use in the conterminous United States under alternative policy scenarios

Land-use change significantly contributes to biodiversity loss, invasive species spread, changes in biogeochemical cycles, and the loss of ecosystem services. Planning for a sustainable future requires a thorough understanding of expected land use at the fine spatial scales relevant for modeling many ecological processes and at dimensions appropriate for regional or national-level policy making. Our goal was to construct and parameterize an econometric model of land-use change to project future land use to the year 2051 at a fine spatial scale across the conterminous United States under several alternative land-use policy scenarios. We parameterized the econometric model of land-use change with the National Resource Inventory (NRI) 1992 and 1997 land-use data for 844 000 sample points. Land-use transitions were estimated for five land-use classes (cropland, pasture, range, forest, and urban). We predicted land-use change under four scenarios: business-as-usual, afforestation, removal of agricultural subsidies, and increased urban rents. Our results for the business-as-usual scenario showed widespread changes in land use, affecting 36% of the land area of the conterminous United States, with large increases in urban land (79%) and forest (7%), and declines in cropland (-16%) and pasture (-13%). Areas with particularly high rates of land-use change included the larger Chicago area, parts of the Pacific Northwest, and the Central Valley of California. However, while land-use change was substantial, differences in results among the four scenarios were relatively minor. The only scenario that was markedly different was the afforestation scenario, which resulted in an increase of forest area that was twice as high as the business-as-usual scenario. Land-use policies can affect trends, but only so much. The basic economic and demographic factors shaping land-use changes in the United States are powerful, and even fairly dramatic policy changes, showed only moderate deviations from the business-as-usual scenario. Given the magnitude of predicted land-use change, any attempts to identify a sustainable future or to predict the effects of climate change will have to take likely land-use changes into account. Econometric models that can simulate land-use change for broad areas with fine resolution are necessary to predict trends in ecosystem service provision and biodiversity persistence.     

Evaluation for sustainable land use in coastal areas: A landscape ecological prospect

Evaluation of sustainability is the core of research on sustainable land use. To a certain extent, traditional social, economic and ecological evaluation for sustainable land use can be regarded as an appraisal on the temporal scale without evaluation of spatial patterns. Landscape ecology can help to realize spatial evaluation for sustainable land use. In this paper, we construct landscape ecological indicators for evaluating sustainable coastal land use from the aspects of landscape productivity, threats and stability, to realize a synthetic temporal-spatial evaluation. These cover the five pillars of sustainable land use, i.e. productivity, security, protection, viability and acceptability. The results of applying landscape ecological evaluation to a case study in Wudi County in China show that land use sustainability is somewhat low and there are great regional differences between its 11 villages. We classified the 11 villages into 5 grades: strong sustainable land use, sustainable land use, weak sustainable land use, weak unsustainable land use, and strong unsustainable land use. Each grade has different land use characteristics and differs in the counter-measures required. But the core countermeasures in all the grades are to improve landscape productivity, to reduce human threats and to optimize landscape patterns.     

Disturbance and landscape dynamics in a changing world

Disturbance regimes are changing rapidly, and the consequences of such changes for ecosystems and linked social-ecological systems will be profound. This paper synthesizes current understanding of disturbance with an emphasis on fundamental contributions to contemporary landscape and ecosystem ecology, then identifies future research priorities. Studies of disturbance led to insights about heterogeneity, scale, and thresholds in space and time and catalyzed new paradigms in ecology. Because they create vegetation patterns, disturbances also establish spatial patterns of many ecosystem processes on the landscape. Drivers of global change will produce new spatial patterns, altered disturbance regimes, novel trajectories of change, and surprises. Future disturbances will continue to provide valuable opportunities for studying pattern-process interactions. Changing disturbance regimes will produce acute changes in ecosystems and ecosystem services over the short (years to decades) and long-term (centuries and beyond). Future research should address questions related to (1) disturbances as catalysts of rapid ecological change, (2) interactions among disturbances, (3) relationships between disturbance and society, especially the intersection of land use and disturbance, and (4) feedbacks from disturbance to other global drivers. Ecologists should make a renewed and concerted effort to understand and anticipate the causes and consequences of changing disturbance regimes.     

Land-cover change within and around protected areas in a biodiversity hotspot

The landscape surrounding protected areas influences their ability to maintain ecosystem functions and achieve conservation goals. As anthropogenic intensification continues, it is important to monitor land-use and land-cover change in and around protected areas. We measure land-cover change surrounding protected areas in the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany Biodiversity hotspot from the 1980s to present. Using Landsat imagery, we classified land cover within and around each protected area. Agricultural land uses were increasing and often directly border protected area boundaries. Human settlements increased around every protected area, potentially increasing human activity along the edges of protected areas and threatening their ecological integrity. Urban expansion around protected areas varied but increased as much as 10%. Woody vegetation cover varied both within and around protected areas with possible evidence of deforestation and shrub encroachment throughout the hotspot. We recommend monitoring land cover across southeastern Africa to better understand regional trends in land-use impacts to protected areas.     

Land-use dynamics and flood risk in the hinterland of the Pearl River Delta: The case of Foshan City

This study examines land-use change and flood risk in the rapidly urbanizing Foshan City, a typical hinterland city in the Pearl River Delta. On the basis of classification of Landsat TM and ETM+ imagery, and further GIS-based spatial analysis, the paper determines that, between 1988–2003, massive land-use and -cover change (LUCC) occurred in this region. During the drastic land-use change, the loss of river area was much lower than that of other land-use types. In this region, appropriately 57.89% of water area was converted to the other land types; 46.65% was converted to new dyke-ponds, farmland, and built-up area, whereas the proportion of the other land types converted to water was only 42.97%. Nearly 15% of total water loss was in land for human use, which represents the degradation of the buffering capacity of the water systems to rainstorms. Further, driven by the pressure of urbanization, drastic changes in land use have resulted in significant alternation of hydrological conditions of the river systems, which, in turn, have potentially caused the higher flood risk in more populous urban areas in the sub-delta plain. Therefore, rational land-use policies should be implemented to give maximum returns while minimizing adverse impacts of flooding.     

Use of Inverse Spatial Conservation Prioritization to Avoid Biological Diversity Loss Outside Protected Areas

Globally expanding human land use sets constantly increasing pressure for maintenance of biological diversity and functioning ecosystems. To fight the decline of biological diversity, conservation science has broken ground with methods such as the operational model of systematic conservation planning (SCP), which focuses on design and on‐the‐ground implementation of conservation areas. The most commonly used method in SCP is reserve selection that focuses on the spatial design of reserve networks and their expansion. We expanded these methods by introducing another form of spatial allocation of conservation effort relevant for land‐use zoning at the landscape scale that avoids negative ecological effects of human land use outside protected areas. We call our method inverse spatial conservation prioritization. It can be used to identify areas suitable for economic development while simultaneously limiting total ecological and environmental effects of that development at the landscape level by identifying areas with highest economic but lowest ecological value. Our method is not based on a priori targets, and as such it is applicable to cases where the effects of land use on, for example, individual species or ecosystem types are relatively small and would not lead to violation of regional or national conservation targets. We applied our method to land‐use allocation to peat mining. Our method identified a combination of profitable production areas that provides the needed area for peat production while retaining most of the landscape‐level ecological value of the ecosystem. The results of this inverse spatial conservation prioritization are being used in land‐use zoning in the province of Central Finland.     

广州东进扩张下的萝岗区土地利用与景观动态分析

以研究区1979年MSS1、990年LandsatTM、2000年LandsatETM以及2006年Aster 4个时段的卫星遥感影像为基础数据,运用RS与GIS技术手段,结合FRAGSTATS景观格局分析软件,对萝岗区近30年来的土地利用与景观格局变化进行了定量分析。研究表明：研究区未利用土地、园地及耕地面积大幅减少,林地与城镇用地面积显著增加。1979—2006年期间,2000年是一个分水岭,2000年前景观的连接度下降,破碎程度增加,景观斑块的形状趋于复杂化,景观结构组成的复杂性也趋于增加。2000年后各指数呈现了逆转的趋势,表明萝岗区为建设成为国际化生态型新城区,在后期的城市化进程中特别重视了生态环境的保护及建设。     

嘉峪关市中心城区扩张过程及其景观特征变化

以中国干旱区嘉峪关市1986、1996、2006和2010年Landsat TM/ETM＋影像为数据源,采用道路扩展和城市建设用地扩张强度反映城区建设扩张过程,同时分析了城市景观类型的斑块特征和结构特征,研究结果表明：1）嘉峪关市中心城区主干道路扩展显著,城市面积增加明显。1986—2010年间嘉峪关市道路长度增加了100.20 km,城市面积从1986年的2 220.03hm^2增加到2010年的5 048.22hm^2,年均扩张强度指数达5.10%。2）城市景观格局变化显著,建设用地、城市绿地和水体分别增加了2 003.74hm^2、655.30hm^2和169.15hm^2,未利用地则减少2 828.19hm^2。建设用地和城市绿地破碎度增加,未利用地破碎度减少。3）城市景观斑块类型更趋均衡化,整体景观和异质性多样性增加。4）城市扩张是嘉峪关城市绿地和水体明显增加的重要原因,人类活动对城市生态环境的影响逐渐增强。     

景观生态学在农业景观生态规划中的应用

从景观生态学的基本原理入手 ,阐述景观生态学在农业景观生态规划中的应用。认为农业景观规划设计不仅关注景观的“土地利用”、“土地肥力”以及人类的短期需求 ,更强调景观的生态价值和美学价值及其带给人类的长期效益。农业景观生态规划设计的中心任务就是创建一个可持续发展的整体区域生态系统。以江苏省宝应县为例进行分析     

兰州市土地利用变化及生态服务价值

以典型河谷型大城市兰州市为例,在RS和GIS技术支持下,剖析了1997-2009年该市各县区土地利用及其变化情况。在此基础上,参考Costanza等生态系统服务价值计算方法和中国陆地生态系统单位面积服务价值表,分析r近12年来研究区土地利用变化对生态系统服务价值的影响及其变化情况。结果表明：1997-2009年兰州市林地增长面积最大,主要来源于耕地的转出及两山绿化,其次为建设用地,主要是对耕地、草地和未利用地的占用;土地利用类型面积减少最大的是耕地,主要转变为林地、草地和建设用地。土地利用变化引起生态系统服务价值及GDP变化,其分别从1997年的59．99亿元,210．27亿元上升到2009年的61．52亿元,920亿元。总体呈增长趋势,表明该区域生态环境整体向良性方向发展。     

Assessing effects of land use on landscape connectivity: loss and fragmentation of western U.S. forests

Effects of land-use change on the conservation of biodiversity have become a concern to conservation scientists and land managers, who have identified loss and fragmentation of natural areas as a high-priority issue. Despite urgent calls to inform national, regional, and state planning efforts, there remains a critical need to develop practical approaches to identify where important lands are for landscape connectivity (i.e., linkages), where land use constrains connectivity, and which linkages are most important to maintain network-wide connectivity extents. Our overall goal in this paper was to develop an approach that provides comprehensive, quantitative estimates of the effects of land-use change on landscape connectivity and illustrate its use on a broad, regional expanse of the western United States. We quantified loss of habitat and landscape connectivity for western forested systems due to land uses associated with residential development, roads, and highway traffic. We examined how these land-use changes likely increase the resistance to movement of forest species in non-forested land cover types and, therefore, reduce the connectivity among forested habitat patches. To do so, we applied a graph-theoretic approach that incorporates ecological aspects within a geographic representation of a network. We found that roughly one-quarter of the forested lands in the western United States were integral to a network of forested patches, though the lands outside of patches remain critical for habitat and overall connectivity. Using remotely sensed land cover data (ca. 2000), we found 1.7 million km2 of forested lands. We estimate that land uses associated with residential development, roads, and highway traffic have caused roughly a 4.5% loss in area (20 000 km2) of these forested patches, and continued expansion of residential land will likely reduce forested patches by another 1.2% by 2030. We also identify linkages among forest patches that are critical for landscape connectivity. Our approach can be readily modified to examine connectivity for other habitats/ecological systems and for other geographic areas, as well as to address more specific requirements for particular conservation planning applications.     

A GIS-based moving window analysis of landscape pattern in the Beijing metropolitan area,China

Quantifying landscape pattern and its change is essential for monitoring and assessment of ecological consequences of urbanization. Using the GIS-based land-use data for 2002, we combined moving window analysis along an urban-rural gradient and around the urban centre with landscape metrics to quantify the spatial pattern of urbanization in Beijing. The results of moving window analysis along the urban-rural gradient indicated that, for class-level metrics, the spatial pattern of urbanization could be quantified using landscape metrics, different land-use types exhibited distinctive spatial signatures, and, for landscape-level metrics, the increase in urbanization in the metropolitan Beijing region has resulted in dramatic increases in patch density (PD), edge density (ED), and patch and landscape shape complexity, and sharp decreases in the largest and mean patch size (MPS), agriculture land-use type, and landscape connectivity. The results of moving window analysis around the urban centre showed that the direction of urbanization could be quantified using the class-level metrics, and landscape-level metrics indicated similar results to gradient analysis. In general, moving window analysis showed that the increasingly urbanized landscape became compositionally more diverse, geometrically more complex, and ecologically more fragmented.     

An Environmental Domain Classification of New Zealand and Its Use as a Tool for Biodiversity Management

Abstract:   Successful biodiversity management, including the selection and subsequent management of protected areas, depends in large measure on classifications showing land areas with similar ecosystem character. In contrast to widely used, qualitative land-classification techniques, we used a numerical classification of explicit spatial layers describing aspects of New Zealand's climate and landforms. We chose input variables for their strong functional links with major physiological processes of trees and high statistical correlations with geographic distributions of individual tree species as determined from previous studies. Higher-level divisions of the resulting classification were dominated by macroclimatic variation associated with change in both latitude and orographic protection provided by New Zealand's main mountain ranges, but variation in landform became more important at finer scales of classification. Classification units showed marked variation in the proportional extent of both indigenous vegetation cover and land set aside for conservation purposes. Indigenous ecosystem remnants of the highest priority for increased protection occurred in warm, lowland domains, particularly in drier environments, where both indigenous cover and protected areas are of minimal geographic extent. Such results underline the considerable potential of an environmental classification to provide a landscape context for systematic conservation management, particularly in environments where the natural ecosystem pattern has been severely modified by human activity.     

广州市萝岗区生态系统服务功能价值空间评估

基于遥感与GIS,选取生产有机物质、涵养水源、净化环境污染、气体调节、营养物质循环、保土育肥6项生态系统服务功能主要指标,计算得到的各项量化的生态服务功能效益,通过影子工程法、市场价值法和机会成本法等转换成生态系统服务价值,在小空间格网上对广州市萝岗区生态系统服务功能价值进行了定量评估和空间分析。结果表明：萝岗区2007年生态系统服务价值达到16.13亿元,平均为37 175.81元/hm2。从空间分布看：萝岗区北部农林地区生态服务价值最高,中部、东部山区的服务价值较高,南部工业地区服务价值较低。不同的生态景观具有不同的生态服务功能,保持生态景观的多样性和均衡性能促进生态系统服务价值的增加。萝岗区生态城建设要保护该区原生的自然生态景观特征和景观格局,促进区域生态服务功能的全面提升和生态服务价值总体增加。