MNR Key Laboratory for Geo-Environmental Monitoring of Great Bay Area & Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Joint Laboratory for Smart Cities & Guangdong Key Laboratory of Urban Informatics & Shenzhen Key Laboratory of Spatial Smart Sensing and Services, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China.
School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, 518060, China.
Nat Commun. 2022 Aug 24;13(1):4955. doi: 10.1038/s41467-022-32648-8.
Most intensive human activities occur in lowlands. However, sporadic reports indicate that human activities are expanding in some Asian highlands. Here we investigate the expansions of human activities in highlands and their effects over Asia from 2000 to 2020 by combining earth observation data and socioeconomic data. We find that ∼23% of human activity expansions occur in Asian highlands and ∼76% of these expansions in highlands comes from ecological lands, reaching 95% in Southeast Asia. The expansions of human activities in highlands intensify habitat fragmentation and result in large ecological costs in low and lower-middle income countries, and they also support Asian developments. We estimate that cultivated land net growth in the Asian highlands contributed approximately 54% in preventing the net loss of the total cultivated land. Moreover, the growth of highland artificial surfaces may provide living and working spaces for ∼40 million people. Our findings suggest that highland developments hold dual effects and provide new insight for regional sustainable developments.
大多数人类活动都发生在低地地区。然而，零星的报告表明，人类活动正在亚洲一些高地地区扩展。在这里，我们通过结合地球观测数据和社会经济数据，研究了 2000 年至 2020 年期间亚洲高地地区人类活动的扩展及其影响。我们发现，约 23%的人类活动扩展发生在亚洲高海拔地区，其中约 76%的高海拔地区的扩展来自生态用地，在东南亚这一比例达到 95%。人类活动在高海拔地区的扩展加剧了生境破碎化，并在中低收入国家造成了巨大的生态代价，同时也支持了亚洲的发展。我们估计，亚洲高海拔地区的耕地净增长约占防止总耕地净损失的 54%。此外，高海拔人工表面的增长可能为约 4000 万人提供了生活和工作空间。我们的研究结果表明，高地地区的发展具有双重影响，为区域可持续发展提供了新的视角。
