Integrating global socio-economic influences into a regional land use change model for China

Abstract

With rapid economic development and urbanization, land use in China has experienced huge changes in recent years; and this will probably continue in the future. Land use problems in China are urgent and need further study. Rapid land-use change and economic development make China an ideal region for integrated land use change studies, particularly the examination of multiple factors and global-regional interactions in the context of global economic integration. This paper presents an integrated modeling approach to examine the impact of global socio-economic processes on land use changes at a regional scale. We develop an integrated model system by coupling a simple global socio-economic model (GLOBFOOD) and regional spatial allocation model (CLUE). The model system is illustrated with an application to land use in China. For a given climate change, population growth, and various socio-economic situations, a global socio-economic model simulates the impact of global market and economy on land use, and quantifies changes of different land use types. The land use spatial distribution model decides the type of land use most appropriate in each spatial grid by employing a weighted suitability index, derived from expert knowledge about the ecosystem state and site conditions. A series of model simulations will be conducted and analyzed to demonstrate the ability of the integrated model to link global socio-economic factors with regional land use changes in China. The results allow an exploration of the future dynamics of land use and landscapes in China.

Keywords

global socio-economic influence / land use change model / integrating / China

Xia XU is currently associate professor of the State key laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology of Beijing Normal University. She earned her Master’s degree in natural resources management, and Ph. D degree in ecological modeling, from Beijing Normal University, China in 2001 and 2006, respectively. She has been engaged in the application of geographic information systems, remote sensing, and spatial analysis of resources in the field of ecological environment. Her research program is focused on the sustainability of land resource base. She is concerned about issues such as global climate change, land use change, ecosystem model simulation, and the mutual coupling between land use and ecological environment models. She has published more than 20 papers. Currently, Xu xia presides over the National Natural Science Foundation of China and a special topic of 973 projects. E-mail: [e-mail]

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Acknowledgements

We appreciate the constructive comments from the editor and anonymous reviewers, which greatly improved the quality of original version. This research was jointly supported by the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2011CB952001), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 41030535, 30900197, and 41271542). Mark Rounsevell and Dave Murray-Rust are acknowledged for their contributions to the model development.

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2013 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg