Habitat quality dynamics in China's first group of national parks in recent four decades: Evidence from land use and land cover changes

Xin Chen; Le Yu; Yue Cao; Yidi Xu; Zhicong Zhao; Youbo Zhuang; Xuehua Liu; Zhenrong Du; Tao Liu; Bo Yang; Lu He; Hui Wu; Rui Yang; Peng Gong

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116505

Habitat quality dynamics in China's first group of national parks in recent four decades: Evidence from land use and land cover changes

J Environ Manage. 2023 Jan 1;325(Pt A):116505. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116505. Epub 2022 Oct 18.

Authors

Xin Chen¹, Le Yu², Yue Cao³, Yidi Xu⁴, Zhicong Zhao³, Youbo Zhuang³, Xuehua Liu⁵, Zhenrong Du¹, Tao Liu¹, Bo Yang⁶, Lu He⁷, Hui Wu⁸, Rui Yang³, Peng Gong⁹

Affiliations

¹ Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
² Department of Earth System Science, Ministry of Education Key Laboratory for Earth System Modeling, Institute for Global Change Studies, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China; Ministry of Education Ecological Field Station for East Asian Migratory Birds, Beijing, 100084, China. Electronic address: leyu@tsinghua.edu.cn.
³ Institute for National Parks, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China; Department of Landscape Architecture, School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
⁴ Laboratoire des Sciences du Climat et de l'Environnement, LSCE/IPSL, CEA-CNRS-UVSQ, Universite Paris-Saclay, Gif-sur-Yvette, 91191, France.
⁵ Institute for National Parks, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China; School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, 100084, China.
⁶ Beijing Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing, 100101, China.
⁷ Ecology and Nature Conservation Institute, Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing, 100091, China.
⁸ School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan, 430074, China.
⁹ Ministry of Education Ecological Field Station for East Asian Migratory Birds, Beijing, 100084, China; Department of Geography, Department of Earth Sciences, and Institute for Climate and Carbon Neutrality, The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, 999077, China.

PMID: 36270131
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116505

Abstract

As the most biodiversity-rich part of the protected areas system, habitats within the pilot national parks have long been threatened by drastic human-induced land use and land cover changes. The growing concern about habitat loss has spurred China's national park project to shift from pilot to construction phase with the official establishment of China's first group of national parks (CFGNPs) in October 2021. But far too little attention has been paid to the synergistic work concerning the habitat quality (HQ) dynamics of all five national parks. Here, the InVEST model, combined with a satellite-derived land use and land cover product and a hot spot analysis (HSA) method, was used to investigate the HQ dynamics at the park- and pixel-scale within the CFGNPs. Our results demonstrate that the past ecological conservation practices within national parks have been unpromising, especially in Giant Panda National Park, Northeast China Tiger and Leopard National Park (NCTL), and Wuyi Mountain National Park (WYM), where HQ as a whole showed a significant decline. Furthermore, more than half of Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park (87.2%), WYM (77.4%), and NCTL (52.9%) showed significant HQ degradation from 1980 to 2019. Besides, increasing trends in the area shares of HQ degraded pixels were observed in all five national parks from 1980-1999 to 2000-2019. The HSA implied that the hot spots of high HQ degradation rates tend to occur in areas closer to urban settlements or on the edge of national parks, where human activities are intensive. Despite these disappointing findings, we highlighted from the observed local successes and the HQ plateau that the construction of CFGNPs is expected to reverse the deteriorating HQ trends. Thus, we concluded our paper by proposing an HSA-based regulatory zoning scheme that includes five subzones to guide the future construction of China's national park system.

Keywords: Habitat quality; Hot spot analysis; InVEST; Land use and land cover; National parks; Protected areas.

MeSH terms

Biodiversity
China
Conservation of Natural Resources* / methods
Ecosystem
Humans
Parks, Recreational*