Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Impacts of future urban expansion on natural habitats will intensify in China: scenario analysis with the improved LUSD-urban model

  • Research Article
  • Published:
Landscape Ecology Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Context

Evaluating the impacts of future urban expansion on natural habitats in China is important for achieving sustainable development goals. However, existing models cannot reliably and effectively simulate future urban expansion in China, which causes great uncertainties in evaluating the impacts of future urban expansion on natural habitats.

Objectives

The objective of this study was to simulate future urban expansion and evaluate its impacts on natural habitats in China.

Methods

First, the Land Use Scenario Dynamics-urban (LUSD-urban) model was improved by coupling localized Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs) and a convolutional neural network (CNN). Then, urban expansion in China was simulated from 2020 to 2050 by using the improved LUSD-urban model. Finally, we evaluated the potential impacts of future urban expansion on natural habitats.

Results

The localized SSPs could more reliably represent future socioeconomic development trends in China, and the CNN could fully extract the multiscale neighborhood information of nonurban pixels. By combining the advantages of the localized SSPs and the CNN, the simulation accuracy of the improved LUSD-urban model increased by 15–32% compared with that of other models. From 2020 to 2050, urban land is projected to increase by 6.84 (3.94–9.03) × 104 km2 and cause a 2.21 (1.23–2.95) × 104 km2 loss of natural habitat. Compared with the 1990–2020 period, the impacts of future urban expansion on natural habitats will intensify. Natural habitat loss during 2020–2050 will be 1.23 (1.22 to 1.64) times greater than that during 1990–2020. In addition, grasslands will experience the most serious losses under the influence of future urban expansion.

Conclusions

We suggest that relevant policies be issued to protect important natural habitats during urbanization to achieve Sustainable Development Goals and biodiversity conservation targets in China.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
Fig. 8

Similar content being viewed by others

Data availability

The data supporting the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

References

  • Angel S, Parent J, Civco DL, Blei A, Potere D (2011) The dimensions of global urban expansion: estimates and projections of all countries, 2000–2050. Progress in Planning 75:53–107

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Bardgett RD, Bullock JM, Lavorel S et al (2021) Combatting global grassland degradation. Nat Rev Earth Environ 2:720–735

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Chen GZ, Li X, Liu XP, Chen YM, Liang X, Leng JY, Xu XC, Liao WL, Qiu YA, Wu QL, Huang KN (2020) Global projections of future urban land expansion under shared socioeconomic pathways. Nat Commun 11:537

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Dong YL, Ren ZB, Fu Y, Miao ZH, Yang R, Sun YH, He XY (2020) Recording urban land dynamic and its effects during 2000–2019 at 15-m resolution by cloud computing with landsat series. Remote Sens 12(15):2451

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Guneralp B, Perlstein AS, Seto KC (2015) Balancing urban growth and ecological conservation: a challenge for planning and governance in China. Ambio 44:532–543

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Guneralp B, Reba M, Hales BU, Wentz EA, Seto KC (2020) Trends in urban land expansion, density, and land transitions from 1970 to 2010: a global synthesis. Environ Res Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab6669

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Hall LS, Krausman PR, Morrison ML (1997) The Habitat Concept and a Plea for standard terminology. Wildl Soc Bull 25:173–182

    Google Scholar 

  • He CY, Okada N, Zhang QF, Shi PJ, Zhang JS (2006) Modeling urban expansion scenarios by coupling cellular automata model and system dynamic model in Beijing, China. Appl Geogr 26:323–345

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • He CY, Liu ZF, Tian J, Ma Q (2014) Urban expansion dynamics and natural habitat loss in China: a multiscale landscape perspective. Glob Chang Biol 20:2886–2902

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • He CY, Zhang D, Huang QX, Zhao YY (2016) Assessing the potential impacts of urban expansion on regional carbon storage by linking the LUSD-urban and InVEST models. Environ Model Softw 75:44–58

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • He JL, Li X, Yao Y, Hong Y, Zhang JB (2018) Mining transition rules of cellular automata for simulating urban expansion by using the deep learning techniques. Int J Geogr Inf Sci 32:2076–2097

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • He CY, Liu ZF, Gou SY, Zhang QF, Zhang JS, Xu LL (2019) Detecting global urban expansion over the last three decades using a fully convolutional network. Environ Res Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aaf936

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Huang K, Li X, Liu X, Seto KC (2019) Projecting global urban land expansion and heat island intensification through 2050. Environ Res Lett. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/ab4b71

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • IUCN (2013) Habitats classification scheme (Version 3.1). In: The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (Version 2013.1). Available at: http://www.iucnredlist.org. Accessed 13 August 2021

  • Jiang T, Zhao J, Jing C, Cao L, Wang Y, Sun H, Wang R (2017) National and provincial population projected to 2100 under the shared socioeconomic pathways in China. Clim Change Res 13:128–137

    Google Scholar 

  • Jiang T, Zhao J, Cao L, Wang Y, Su B, Jing C, Gao C (2018) Projection of national and provincial economy under the shared socioeconomic pathways in China. Clim Change Res 14:50–58

    Google Scholar 

  • Krizhevsky A, Sutskever I, Hinton GE (2017) ImageNet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. Commun ACM 60:84–90

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Lark TJ, Spawn SA, Bougie M et al (2020) Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife. Nat Commun 11:4295

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • LeCun Y, Bengio Y, Hinton G (2015) Deep learning. Nature 521:436–444

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Li XC, Zhang J, Li ZY, Hu TY, Wu QS, Yang J, Huang JX, Su W, Zhao YY, Zhou YY, Liu XP, Gong P, Wang X (2021) Critical role of temporal contexts in evaluating urban cellular automata models. GISci Remote Sens 58:799–811

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Li GD, Fang CL, Li YJ, Wang ZB, Sun S, He SW, Qi W, Bao C, Ma HT, Fan YP, Feng YX, Liu XP (2022) Global impacts of future urban expansion on terrestrial vertebrate diversity. Nat Commun 13:1628

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Lu DD, Yao SM, Li GP, Liu H, Gao XL (2007) A scientific thought about urbanization progress in China. Econ Geogr 27:883–887

    Google Scholar 

  • McDonald RI, Güneralp B, Huang CW, Seto KC, You MD (2018) Conservation priorities to protect vertebrate endemics from global urban expansion. Biol Conserv 224:290–299

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Olson DM, Dinerstein E, Wikramanayake ED, Burgess ND, Powell GVN, Underwood EC, Morrison JC (2001) Terrestrial ecoregions of the world: a new map of life on Earth. Bioscience 51:933–938

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • O’Mara FP (2012) The role of grasslands in food security and climate change. Annals of Botany 110(6):1263–1270

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • O’Neill BC, Kriegler E, Ebi KL, Kemp-Benedict E, Riahi K, Rothman DS, Solecki W (2017) The roads ahead: Narratives for shared socioeconomic pathways describing world futures in the 21st century. Global Environ Change 42:169–180. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2015.01.004

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Ren Q, He CY, Huang QX, Shi PJ, Zhang D, Güneralp B (2022) Impacts of urban expansion on natural habitats in global drylands. Nat Sustain. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-022-00930-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Riahi K, van Vuuren DP, Kriegler E, Edmonds J, O’Neill BC, Fujimori S, Bauer N, Calvin K, Dellink R, Fricko O, Lutz W, Popp A, Cuaresma JC, Samir KC, Leimbach M, Jiang LW, Kram T, Rao S, Emmerling J, Ebi K, Hasegawa T, Havlik P, Humpenöder F, Silva LAD, Smith S, Stehfest E, Bosetti V, Eom JY, Gernaat D, Masui T, Rogelj J, Strefler J, Drouet L, Krey V, Luderer G, Harmsen M, Takahashi K, Baumstark L, Doelman JC, Kainuma M, Klimont Z, Marangoni G, Lotze-Campen H, Obersteiner M, Tabeau A, Tavoni M (2017) The shared socioeconomic pathways and their energy, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions implications: an overview. Glob Environ Change 42:153–168

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Seto KC, Guneralp B, Hutyra LR (2012) Global forecasts of urban expansion to 2030 and direct impacts on biodiversity and carbon pools. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:16083–16088

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Simkin RD, Seto KC, McDonald RI, Jetz W (2022) Biodiversity impacts and conservation implications of urban land expansion projected to 2050. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 119:e2117297119

    Article  CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Song SS, Liu ZF, He CY, Lu WL (2020) Evaluating the effects of urban expansion on natural habitat quality by coupling localized shared socioeconomic pathways and the land use scenario dynamics-urban model. Ecol Ind. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106071

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Tang LP, Ke XL, Chen YY, Wang LY, Zhou QS, Zheng WW, Xiao BY (2020) Which impacts more seriously on natural habitat loss and degradation? Cropland expansion or urban expansion? Land Degrad Dev 32:946–964

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu JG (2013) Landscape sustainability science: ecosystem services and human well-being in changing landscapes. Landsc Ecol 28(6):999–1023

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu JG (2019) Linking landscape, land system and design approaches to achieve sustainability. J Land Use Sci 14(2):173–189

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Wu JG (2021) Landscape sustainability science (II): core questions and key approaches. Landsc Ecol 36:2453–2485

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Wu JG (2022) A new frontier for landscape ecology and sustainability: introducing the world’s first atlas of urban agglomerations. Landsc Ecol 37:1721–1728

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Wu JG, Xiang WN, Zhao JZ (2014) Urban ecology in China: historical developments and future directions. Landsc Urban Plan 125:222–233

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Xu M, He CY, Liu ZF, Dou YY (2016) How did Urban Land Expand in China between 1992 and 2015? A Multi-Scale Landscape Analysis. PLoS ONE 11:e0154839

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Zhao M, Cheng CX, Zhou YY, Li XC, Shen S, Song CQ (2022) A global dataset of annual urban extents (1992–2020) from harmonized nighttime lights. Earth Syst Sci Data 14:517–534

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Zhou YR, Varquez ACG, Kanda M (2019) High-resolution global urban growth projection based on multiple applications of the SLEUTH urban growth model. Sci Data 6:34

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  • Zhu QQ, Lei Y, Sun XL, Guan QF, Zhong YF, Zhang LP, Li DR (2022) Knowledge-guided land pattern depiction for urban land use mapping: a case study of chinese cities. Remote Sens Environ. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2022.112916

    Article  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We want to express our respect for and gratitude to the anonymous reviewers and editors for their professional comments and suggestions.

Funding

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grants No. 41971270), the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2019YFA0607203), and the Project Supported by State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (Grant No. 2022-GS-02). It was also supported by the project from State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, China (Grant No. 2021-KF-10).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disasters of Chinese Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, 19 Xinjiekouwai Street, Beijing, 100875, China

    Wenlu Lu, Qiang Ren, Tao Qi & Chunyang He

  2. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (ESPRE), Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Wenlu Lu, Qiang Ren, Tao Qi & Chunyang He

  3. Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Emergency Management and Ministry of Education, 100875, Beijing, China

    Wenlu Lu, Qiang Ren, Tao Qi & Chunyang He

  4. Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Wenlu Lu, Qiang Ren & Tao Qi

  5. College of Geography and Ocean Sciences, Yanbian University, Yanji, China

    Da Zhang

  6. Academy of Plateau Science and Sustainability, People’s Government of Qinghai Province and Beijing Normal University, Xining, China

    Chunyang He

Authors
  1. Wenlu Lu
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Da Zhang
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Qiang Ren
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Tao Qi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Chunyang He
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

WL: conceptualization, methodology, visualization, writing—original draft. DZ: writing—review and editing. QR: writing—review and editing. TQ: writing—review and editing. CH: supervision, writing—review and editing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Chunyang He.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Additional information

Publisher’s Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Supplementary Information

Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.

Supplementary material 1 (DOCX 3197.1 kb)

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Lu, W., Zhang, D., Ren, Q. et al. Impacts of future urban expansion on natural habitats will intensify in China: scenario analysis with the improved LUSD-urban model. Landsc Ecol 38, 2547–2567 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01740-9

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-023-01740-9

Keywords

Search

Navigation