Bureau of Ecological Research, Division of Ecosystem Services and Research Planning, National Institute of Ecology, Seocheongun, Choongnam 33657, Republic of Korea.
Professorship of Ecological Services, Faculty of Biology, Chemistry and Earth Sciences, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, Universitaetsstrasse 30, 95440 Bayreuth, Germany.
Sci Total Environ. 2018 Jul 15;630:827-838. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.02.176. Epub 2018 Feb 27.
In mountainous watersheds, agricultural land use cause changes in ecosystem services, with trade-offs between crop production and erosion regulation. Management of these watersheds can generate environmental land use conflicts among regional stakeholders with different interests. Although several researches have made a start in mapping land use conflicts between human activities and conservation, spatial assessment of land use conflicts on environmental issues and ecosystem service trade-offs within agricultural areas has not been fully considered. In this study, we went further to map land use conflicts between agricultural preferences for crop production and environmental emphasis on erosion regulation. We applied an agricultural land suitability index, based on multi-criteria analysis, to estimate the spatial preference of agricultural activities, while applying the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) to reflect the environmental importance of soil erosion. Then, we classified the agricultural catchment into four levels of land use conflicts (lowest, low, high and highest) according to preference and importance of farmland areas, and we compared the classes by crop type. Soil loss in agricultural areas was estimated as 45.1thayr, and agricultural suitability as 0.873; this indicated that land use conflicts in the catchment could arise between severe soil erosion (environmental importance) and agricultural suitability (land preferences). Dry-field farms are mainly located in areas of low land use conflict level, where land preference outweighs environmental importance. When we applied farmland management scenarios with consideration of services, conversion to highest-conflict areas (Scenario 1) as 7.5% of the total area could reduce soil loss by 24.6%, while fallow land management (Scenario 2) could decrease soil loss 19.4% more than the current scenario (Business as usual). The result could maximize land management plans by extracting issues of spatial priority and use-versus-conservation conflicts as ecosystem service trade-offs from arguments over land use policy.
在山区流域，农业土地利用会导致生态系统服务发生变化，作物生产和侵蚀调控之间存在权衡关系。这些流域的管理可能会在不同利益相关者之间产生环境土地利用冲突。尽管已有多项研究开始对人类活动与保护之间的土地利用冲突进行制图，但农业区环境问题和生态系统服务权衡的土地利用冲突的空间评估尚未得到充分考虑。在本研究中，我们更进一步地绘制了农业对作物生产的偏好与环境对侵蚀调控的重视之间的土地利用冲突图。我们应用了基于多准则分析的农业土地适宜性指数来估计农业活动的空间偏好，同时应用修正的通用土壤流失方程（RUSLE）来反映土壤侵蚀的环境重要性。然后，我们根据农田区域的偏好和重要性将农业流域划分为四个土地利用冲突等级（最低、低、高和最高），并按作物类型对这些等级进行了比较。农业区的土壤流失量估计为 45.1t/ha·yr，农业适宜性为 0.873；这表明流域内的土地利用冲突可能发生在严重的土壤侵蚀（环境重要性）和农业适宜性（土地偏好）之间。旱地农场主要分布在土地利用冲突水平较低的地区，那里土地偏好超过了环境重要性。当我们应用考虑服务的农田管理方案时，将 7.5%的总面积转换为最高冲突区（方案 1）可以减少 24.6%的土壤流失，而休耕土地管理（方案 2）比现状（照常营业）可以减少 19.4%的土壤流失。该结果可以通过提取空间优先级问题和利用-保护冲突作为生态系统服务权衡，从土地利用政策的争论中提取出土地管理计划的问题。
