Effects Of Land Use Change On Ecosystem Services Value In Changsha City, China

Ecosystem services value (ESV) and land use/cover change (LUCC) are all the hot issues in the field of eco-environment sustainable development. The economic valuation of ecosystem services has been a hot topic in ecological economic research. Land use/cover change is a core joint project of the environmental research. LUCC and ESV impact and restrict each other. It is of great significance to conduct some researches on the change of ecosystem services value based on land use change.In this study, Changsha, a typical city in red soil hilly region of Central Hunan Province, was chose as the study area to analyze the variety of ecosystem services value based on land use change. According to previously published data and the real condition of Changsha, ecosystem services value coefficients of each land use category were estimated. We analyzed not only the whole city but also the urban district where the landscape changed more rapidly in the center of the city. Two LANDSAT TM data sets in 1986 and 2000 and land use data of five urban districts from 1995 to 2005 were used to estimate changes in the size of seven land use categories, then used value coefficients to detect changes in the value of ecosystem services delivered by each land category.The results showed that the value coefficient of wet land is the highest, water body is second and unused land is lowest. From 1986 to 2000, area of woodland, grassland, wet land and unused land decreased respectively, by contrast, construction land, cropland, water body increased. Woodland decreased most while cropland increased most. The total value of ecosystem services in Changsha declined 1321.45×106 yuan RMB, the annual change reat is -0.38%. This was attributable to the rapid encrease of construction land and large decrease of woodland which had relative high value coefficient. In the five districts, 76.27×106 yuan RMB declined in ecosystem service value between 1995 and 2005, the annual change reat is -0.98%, which was more than double of the whole city. This may attribute to fast urban expansion in the five urban districts. ESV of Yuhua District declined most fast, while Kaifu District slowest relatively. And it was consistent with the land use change, Yuhua District changed greatly, and Kaifu District's variation range was lower than the total area.The sensitivity analysis indicated that the ESV lacked elasticity on the value coefficients which we estimated, the results are credible. The decrease of area of woodland, water body and wet land which have high value coefficients will lead to ecosystem services value decline constantly. The ecological environment of Changsha, in red soil hilly region of Central Hunan Province is relative fragile, it is necessary to pay more attention to the ecological benefits when adjusting the land use structure to mitigate the downtrend of ESV in Changsha City.