| On our planet, land use land cover change is inevitable given the number of interconnected factors underlying those changes. As changes in land use and land cover sometimes bring about severe impacts, it is important to track changes in land use and land cover within a period of time in order to have a clear understand of land use and land cover dynamics and their impacts.With this aim, this research focused on the dynamics and the drivers of land use and land cover in Longhai City and the impacts they have had on ecosystem services from1986to2010. Geospatial techniques including GIS and remote sensing were used to analyze Landsat images from which we found out the changes in land use and land cover across our study period. We used a backdating classification method to generate land use maps for2010,2002,1996and1986from Landsat5Thematic Mapper and Landsat7enhanced thematic mapper imagery. Generated land use maps were used to assess the impacts of changes in land use and land cover using InVEST tool coupled with the economic model.Land use classification indicates that there have been large changes in land use and land cover in our study area across our period of study. Population growth and the economic growth are believed to be the main drivers of land use land cover change in our study area. Three land use categories namely forest, farmland and buildup have been revealed to dominate our study area. Between1986and2010, the forest area decreased from1449.5km2to1072.5km2.Changes in LUCC led to changes in ecosystem services value from1986to2010. The ecosystem services provided by the sea are the most valuable and lost2%across our study period due the changes in land use and land cover. Among the7coastal zones in our study area, Zini Island has been revealed to provide the most valuable ecosystem services with the average value estimated at141.1million RMB whereas Longhai City Centre provides the least valuable ecosystem services valuated at10.6million RMB on the average. |
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