The Strategic Ecological Impact Assessment Of Urban Development Of Shandong Province

Influenced by the socio-economy and population growth,urbanization is an inevitable tendency in today's world.As the most important human habitat,cities all over the world provided residence for approximately 3.3 billion or 50%of the world's population in 2007.The urban population is expected to increase to almost 5 billion by 2030.The rapid growth of population and urban expansion are the major driving forces that contribute to land use change,including the rapid loss of arable land and an increase of urban impermeable land area.Urban development results in several challenges including ecological problems from local to global scales such as the reduction of biodiversity and the weakening of ecosystem services.It has drawn the attention of decision-makers all over the world on how to incorporate the consideration of environmental and ecological protection into the policy-makers' deliberation on the legislation and implementation of policies,plans and programs (PPPs),so as to achieve the sustainable development of ecosystems,socio-economy and environment.The technologies of Geographic Information System(GIS) and Remote Sensing (RS) have been employed as an aiding tool for risk assessment as well as simulation of land use changes.Strategic Environmental Assessment(SEA),Environmental Impact Assessment(EIA) and Ecological Impact Assessment(EcIA) are used as decision aiding tools in many developed as well as developing countries to predict and evaluate the potential environmental impacts at different levels.These tools can also be used to provide alternatives in order to avoid,mitigate or compensate for these environmental impacts.As a key component of EIA,EcIA can integrate ecosystems or their components into the implementation of EIA and provide measures for the protection and management of ecosystems.The practices of EcIA mainly focus on the ecological evaluation of projects of land resource development.Few of the EcIAs have been applied to assess the ecological impact of Policy,Plan and Program(PPPs) at a strategic level.This is due to the applied limits of the EIA,which is generally used to evaluate the environmental impact of programs,projects or other single development activities.The application of EcIA at a strategic level,however,would be an effective auxiliary component of SEA to evaluate the ecological impacts of PPPs.It would provide an alternative to avoid,mitigate or compensate for these impacts from a macro perspective.As a developing country,China's economy has experienced a dramatic economic growth since its integration in the world economy after 1978.As an economically powerful province of China with a large population,Shandong Province has earned its economic growth to some extent at the cost of environmental quality since the 1950s. A series of policies made by central and/or local governments were economy-oriented without taking enough environmental concern into account.These policies sped up the environmental degeneration of Shandong Province.Facing the deterioration of environmental quality,the people and Government of Shandong Province have realized the importance of ecosystem services and other values of the environment and have been paying greater attention to improving environmental quality.In this study,Shandong Province is viewed as a representative case in terms of the impact of the socio-economic development on ecosystem services in China.Land uses and their changes were categorized and mapped between 1980 and 2006.The ecosystem services capital and changes of 111 counties of Shandong Province in different phases were evaluated,as well the total ecosystem services capital of Shandong Province.Four sets of Landsat TM images of Shandong Province (1980/1995/2000/2006,seven bands) were used in this study.Five different land uses: arable land,forestland,grassland,wetland,as well as residential and industrial land were categorized by ArcGIS 9.0 software based on field investigation in Shandong Province.ArcGIS 9.0 software was also employed to map the conversions among land uses and determine the changes of various ecosystem services providing areas in different phases(1980-1995,1995-2000 and 2000-2006).Two important cities,Ji'nan City and Rizhao City,were viewed as representative case studies to analyze the ecological impact of different urban development policies.Finally,three management strategies for managing and improving ecosystem services were proposed and discussed with the aim of achieving coordinate and sustainable development of the socio-economy,environment and ecosystems not only in Shandong Province but also in other provinces of China,as well as in other developing and transitional countries and regions.Land uses of Shandong Province in 1980,1995,2000 and 2006 were categorized and mapped.They show that arable land and residential and industrial land of Shandong Province have experienced a clear change since 1980,especially during the 2000s.On the contrary,residential and industrial land of Shandong Province has had a continuous expansion since 1980,which experienced a dramatic increase during the 2000s.The other three land uses,forestland,grassland and wetland,did not have a clear change during the 1980s and 1990s.However,they experienced a sharp loss between 2000 and 2006 especially grassland,which was due to the rapid expansion of arable land and residential and industrial land.The counties with high Total Ecosystems Services Value(TESV) per km~2 are located in the mountainous areas of the Jiaodong Peninsula and the middle part of Shandong Province,as well as the Yellow River Delta and South Four Lakes wetlands.Most of the counties where the Prefectural-Level Cities are located are also included in these areas.However,the counties,on the plains in the west and south-east parts of Shandong Province as well as the mountainous areas in the south part of Shandong Province,have a lower TESV per km~2.Our study by way of introduction captured the strategic ecological impact of urban development strategies of Ji'nan City and Rizhao City on ecosystems and their components in different phases.This was followed by an assessment and analysis of biodiversity,habitats and ecosystem services and their changes.Growth in the 1990's was influenced by the traditional economy-centered development strategy,where the former UDP of Ji'nan City and Rizhao City mainly focused on the urban socio-economic development by speeding up the construction of urban infrastructures, expanding urban built-up areas as well as strengthening the development of resourceand pollution-intensive industries.This caused a significant decrease of arable land and forest land,which hampered the sustainable development of biodiversity,habitats and ecosystem services of Ji'nan City and Rizhao City during the early 1990s.The rapid socio-economic development and population growth of Ji'nan City and Rizhao City mainly took place in urban-rural fringe areas of Ji'nan City and Rizhao City. Arable land was occupied for resident and industrial land.The decrease of farmland posed a threat,at least in part,to Shandong Province's forest and wetland ecosystems as well as their ecological services.Given this,the government of Ji'nan City and Rizhao City has taken ecological protection more into account in more recent UDP, with important effects on land use change and ecosystem management.This promulgation of a more eco-environmentally friendly UDP in recent years has contributed to protect and maintain the ecosystems and their components.Based on our analysis,we predict that ecosystems as well as ecosystem services of Ji'nan City and Rizhao City will be maintained with the current UDPs in the near future.These UDPs will contribute to promote a more coordinated and sustainable development of cities' socio-economy,environment,and ecology.