Hu Huabin, Liu Wenjun, Cao Min
Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Menglun, Mengla, Yunnan, 666303, China.
Environ Monit Assess. 2008 Nov;146(1-3):147-56. doi: 10.1007/s10661-007-0067-7. Epub 2007 Dec 20.
Changing the landscape has serious environmental impacts affecting the ecosystem services, particularly in the tropics. In this paper, we report changes in ecosystem services in relation to land use and land cover over an 18-year period (1988--2006) in the Menglun Township, Xishuangbanna, Southwest China. We used Landsat TM/ETM and Quickbird data sets to estimate changes in ten land use and land cover categories, and generalized value coefficients to estimate changes in the ecosystem services provided by each land category. The results showed that over the 18-year period, the land use and land cover in the study area experienced significant changes. Rubber plantations increased from 12.10% of total land cover to 45.63%, while forested area and swidden field decreased from 48.73 and 13.14 to 27.57 and 0.46%, respectively. During this period, the estimated value of ecosystem services dropped by US $11.427 million (approximately 27.73%). Further analysis showed that there were significant changes in ecological functions such as nutrient cycling, erosion control, climate regulation and water treatment as well as recreation; the obvious increase in the ecological function is provision of raw material (natural rubber). Our findings conclude that an abrupt shift in land use from ecologically important tropical forests and traditionally managed swidden fields to large-scale rubber plantations result in a great loss of ecosystem services in this area. Further, the study suggests that provision of alternative economic opportunities would help in maintaining ecosystem services and for an appropriate compensation mechanisms need to be established based on rigorous valuation.
景观变化具有严重的环境影响，会影响生态系统服务，尤其是在热带地区。在本文中，我们报告了中国西南部西双版纳勐仑镇18年期间（1988 - 2006年）与土地利用和土地覆盖相关的生态系统服务变化。我们使用陆地卫星TM/ETM和快鸟数据集来估算十种土地利用和土地覆盖类型的变化，并使用通用价值系数来估算每种土地类型提供的生态系统服务变化。结果表明，在这18年期间，研究区域的土地利用和土地覆盖发生了显著变化。橡胶种植园从占土地覆盖总面积的12.10%增加到45.63%，而森林面积和轮作农田分别从48.73%和13.14%下降到27.57%和0.46%。在此期间，生态系统服务的估计价值下降了1142.7万美元（约27.73%）。进一步分析表明，在养分循环、侵蚀控制、气候调节、水处理以及娱乐等生态功能方面发生了显著变化；生态功能的明显增加是提供原材料（天然橡胶）。我们的研究结果得出结论，土地利用从具有重要生态意义的热带森林和传统管理的轮作农田突然转变为大规模橡胶种植园，导致该地区生态系统服务大量丧失。此外，该研究表明，提供替代经济机会将有助于维持生态系统服务，并且需要基于严格的评估建立适当的补偿机制。
