Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2019, Vol. 74 ›› Issue (3): 446-459.doi: 10.11821/dlxb201903004

• Land Use and Ecosystem Services • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Assessment of territorial ecosystem carbon storage based on land use change scenario: A case study in Qihe River Basin

Wenbo ZHU(), Jingjing ZHANG, Yaoping CUI, Hui ZHENG, Lianqi ZHU()   

  1. College of Environment and Planning, Henan University, Kaifeng 475004, Henan, China
  • Received:2018-03-15 Revised:2019-02-14 Online:2019-03-25 Published:2019-03-19
  • Supported by:
    National Basic Research Program of China, No.2015CB452702;National Natural Science Foundation of China. No.41671090

Abstract:

The change of regional land use is the main cause for the change of carbon storage in territorial ecosystem, which affects the process of carbon emission and sink. However, previous studies on the impact of future land use change on ecosystem carbon storage considering temporal and spatial scales in the basin are still absent. This study analyzed land use change from 2005 to 2015 in the Qihe River Basin, Taihang mountainous areas, and used Markov-CLUE-S composite models to predict land use pattern of this region in 2025, under three scenarios of natural growth, farmland protection and ecological conservation. Based on the data of land use, we used carbon storage module in InVEST model to evaluate carbon storage of territorial ecosystem during the past 10 years and the future. The results showed that: (1) The carbon storage and carbon density of the ecosystem in the Qihe River Basin in 2015 were 3.16×107 t and 141.9 t/hm2, respectively, and they both had decreased by 0.07×107 t and 2.89 t/hm2 during the 10 years. (2) From 2005 to 2015, the carbon density was mainly reduced in low altitude areas, and the ratio of the increased areas was similar to that of the reduced areas in the high altitude areas. The decrease of carbon density was mainly caused by expansion of construction land in the middle and lower reaches, and degradation of forestland in the upper reach of Qihe River Basin. (3) From 2015 to 2025, the carbon storage and carbon density of ecosystem will decrease by 0.03×107 t and 1.38 t/hm2 respectively in the natural growth scenario, mainly due to the reduction of carbon sequestration capacity in low altitude areas. The farmland conservation scenario will slow down the decrease of carbon storage and carbon density (0.01×107 t and 0.44 t/hm2), mainly due to the enhancement of carbon sequestration capacity in low altitude areas. The ecological protection scenario will increase carbon storage and carbon density significantly to 3.19×107 t and 143.26 t/hm2 respectively, mainly appearing in the area above 1100 m. The ecological protection scenario can enhance carbon sequestration capacity, but it cannot effectively control the loss of farmland area. Therefore, the land use planning of the study area can comprehensively consider the ecological protection scenario and farmland conservation scenario, which not only increases carbon sink, but also ensures the farmland quality and food security.

Key words: land use, Markov-CLUE-S composite model, InVEST model, carbon storage, scenario simulation, Qihe River Basin