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Modelling the integrated effects of land use and climate change scenarios on forest ecosystem aboveground biomass, a case study in Taihe County of China

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Abstract

Global and regional environmental changes such as land use and climate change have significantly integrated and interactive effects on forest. These integrated effects will undoubtedly alter the distribution, function and succession processes of forest ecosystems. In order to adapt to these changes, it is necessary to understand their individual and integrated effects. In this study, we proposed a framework by using coupling models to gain a better understanding of the complex ecological processes. We combined an agent-based model for land use and land cover change (ABM/LUCC), an ecosystem process model (PnET-II), and a forest dynamic landscape model (LANDIS-II) to simulate the change of forest aboveground biomass (AGB) which was driven by land use and climate change factors for the period of 2010–2050 in Taihe County of southern China, where subtropical coniferous plantations dominate. We conducted a series of land use and climate change scenarios to compare the differences in forest AGB. The results show that: (1) land use, including town expansion, deforestation and forest conversion and climate change are likely to influence forest AGB in the near future in Taihe County. (2) Though climate change will make a good contribution to an increase in forest AGB, land use change can result in a rapid decrease in the forest AGB and play a vital role in the integrated simulation. The forest AGB under the integrated scenario decreased by 53.7% (RCP2.6 + land use), 57.2% (RCP4.5 + land use), and 56.9% (RCP8.5 + land use) by 2050, which is in comparison to the results under separate RCPs without land use disturbance. (3) The framework can offer a coupled method to better understand the complex and interactive ecological processes, which may provide some supports for adapting to land use and climate change, improving and optimizing plantation structure and function, and developing measures for sustainable forest management.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zhuo Wu, Erfu Dai, Quansheng Ge & Xiaofan Wang

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Zhuo Wu & Xiaofan Wang

  3. Department of Biological and Health Sciences, Texas A&M University, Kingsville, Texas, 78363, USA

    Weimin Xi

  4. Key Laboratory of Land Use, Ministry of Land and Resources, China Land Surveying and Planning Institute, Beijing, 100035, China

    Xiaofan Wang

Authors
  1. Zhuo Wu
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  2. Erfu Dai
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  3. Quansheng Ge
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  4. Weimin Xi
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  5. Xiaofan Wang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Erfu Dai.

Additional information

Foundation: National Basic Research Program of China (973 Program), No.2015CB452702; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41571098, No.41371196, No.41530749; National Key Technology R&D Program, No.2013BAC03B04

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Wu, Z., Dai, E., Ge, Q. et al. Modelling the integrated effects of land use and climate change scenarios on forest ecosystem aboveground biomass, a case study in Taihe County of China. J. Geogr. Sci. 27, 205–222 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-017-1372-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-017-1372-x

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