Land Use-Driven Changes in Ecosystem Service Values and Simulation of Future Scenarios: A Case Study of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

Abstract

Global climate change and land use change arising from human activities affect the ecosystem service values (ESVs). Such impacts have increasingly become significant, especially in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP). Major factors impeding the construction of China’s “ecological security barrier” are shifts in land-use patterns under rapid urbanization, irrational crop and animal husbandry activities, and tourism. In the present study, land use changes in the QTP in recent years were analyzed to determine their impacts on ESVs, followed by simulations of the interactive and evolutionary relationships between land use and ESVs under two scenarios: natural development scenarios and ecological protection scenarios. According to the results, the QTP land-use structure has a small change, and the main land use type is alpine grassland, followed by bare land and woodland. The stability of the major land use types is the key factor responsible for the overall increasing ESV trend. Different regions on the QTP had substantially varied ESVs. The northwest and southeast regions are mostly bare land, which is a concentrated area of low value of ecosystem services. A variety of land use types including grassland and woodland have been found in the humid and semi-humid areas of the central region, so the high value of ecosystem services is concentrated in this area to form a hot spot, with a Z value of 0.63–2.84. Simulations under the natural development and ecological protection scenarios revealed that land use changes guided by ecological policies were more balanced and the associated ESVs were relatively higher than those under the natural development scenario. Under a global climate change context, human activities on the QTP should be better managed. Sustainable development in the region could be facilitated by ensuring synchronization between resource availability and adopted socioeconomic activities.