Analysis of Land Use Change and Its Economic and Ecological Value under the Optimal Scenario and Green Development Advancement Policy: A Case Study of Hechi, China

Abstract

Studying future land use change for sustainable regional development remains a challenging task. Although many previous studies have conducted multi-scenario simulations, research on optimal scenarios that consider the impact of regional policies is relatively limited. In this paper, based on exploring the drivers of land use change, a land value assessment framework that considers the impacts of future land use change is developed by combining multi-objective programming and patch-generating land use simulation models. The framework is useful for predicting land use changes and assessing the ecological and economic values of land in different development strategy contexts (natural development scenario, economic development scenario, ecological protection scenario and green economy scenario). The results show that during the period 1990–2020, the forest area fluctuated greatly. The area of forest initially increased from 249.21 × 104 hm2 to 249.33 × 104 hm2, but then decreased to 248.53 × 104 hm2. Moreover, the model results show that altitude is the main driving force of land use change. By 2035, the economic value under the green economy scenario will be CNY 924.08 × 108, slightly lower than the CNY 938.01 × 108 under the economic development scenario. However, the ecological value under the economic development scenario will drop from CNY 675.43 × 108 CNY in 2020 to CNY 633.56 × 108 in 2025. Therefore, the green economy scenario will be more in line with the development needs of local policies, and the future land use distribution of this scenario can provide reference for regional land planning.