Land use management based on multi-scenario allocation and trade-offs of ecosystem services in Wafangdian County, Liaoning Province, China

Wenzhen Zhao; Zenglin Han; Xiaolu Yan; Jingqiu Zhong

doi:10.7717/peerj.7673

Land use management based on multi-scenario allocation and trade-offs of ecosystem services in Wafangdian County, Liaoning Province, China

PeerJ. 2019 Sep 16:7:e7673. doi: 10.7717/peerj.7673. eCollection 2019.

Authors

Wenzhen Zhao^#¹, Zenglin Han^#^{1

2}, Xiaolu Yan^{2

3}, Jingqiu Zhong²

Affiliations

¹ Liaoning Normal University, Urban and Environmental college, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China.
² Liaoning Normal University, Center for Studies of Marine Economy and Sustainable Development, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China.
³ Chinese Academy of Sciences, Institute of Applied Ecology, Shenyang, Liaoning Province, China.

^# Contributed equally.

Abstract

Developing effective methods to coordinate the trade-offs among ecosystem services (ES) is important for achieving inclusive growth and sustainable development, and has been the focus of scholars and ecosystem managers globally. Using remote sensing and geographic information system (GIS) data, our study examined Wafangdian County of Liaoning Province as a case study to reveal the spatiotemporal evolution of four ES (food supply [FS], net primary productivity [NPP], water yield [WY], and soil conservation [SC]) and changes among their interactions. Then, an ordered weighted averaging model was introduced to simulate the optimal scenario of ES allocation. Results showed that: (1) the spatial and temporal changes in ES were significant over 14 years. All ES presented an inverted U-shaped growth curve from 2000-2014. (2) Synergies were observed within provisioning services, and there were trade-offs between provisioning services and regulating services, as well as provisioning services and supporting services. (3) The optimal scenario for Wafangdian was scenario 5 (trade-off coefficient, 0.68). The allocation of FS, NPP, WY, and SC in scenario 5 were 0.187, 0.427, 0.131, and 0.063, respectively. Implementing each ES weight of optimal scenario in land use management contributed to achieving intercoordination of ES. We propose to coordinate land and sea management to restore natural habitats that were expanded into in the high ES area. It is our anticipation that this study could provide a scientific basis for optimizing the allocation of ES and improving land use structure of coastal zones in the future.

Keywords: Ecological management; Ecosystem services; Land use; Trade-off.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41571122), the Natural Science Foundation Guidance Program of Liaoning Province (20180551194), the Education Commission of Liaoning Province of China (H201783631, WQ2019020), the Social Science Federation 2019 Economic and Social Development of Liaoning Province (2019lslktjd-014), the Liaoning Planning Fund Project of Philosophy and Social Science (L17CJY003), and the PhD Research Startup Foundation of Liaoning Normal University (BS2018L007). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.