Journal of Geographical Sciences >
Modelling the integrated effects of land use and climate change scenarios on forest ecosystem aboveground biomass, a case study in Taihe County of China
Author: Wu Zhuo, PhD Candidate, specialized in climate change and simulation of LUCC. E-mail: wuz.14b@igsnrr.ac.cn
*Corresponding author: Dai Erfu (1972-), PhD and Professor, E-mail: daief@igsnrr.ac.cn
Received date: 2016-08-30
Accepted date: 2016-10-09
Online published: 2017-04-10
Supported by
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
Copyright
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.
Key words: RCPs; plantation; forest aboveground biomass; ABM; LANDIS-II; Taihe County
WU Zhuo , DAI Quansheng , GE Quansheng , XI Weimin , WANG Xiaofan . 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]. Journal of Geographical Sciences, 2017 , 27(2) : 205 -222 . DOI: 10.1007/s11442-017-1372-x
Figure 1 Location and land use types of Taihe County, Jiangxi Province, China. QYZ station: Qianyanzhou ecological station |
Figure 2 Variation trend of annual mean temperature and precipitation in the study area under RCPs scenarios from 2010 to 2050. (a) annual mean temperature (°C); (b) annual total precipitation (mm) under RCPs scenarios |
Figure 3 The map of development probability for resident agents to settle, where 0.0 means no development at all and 1.0 means full development |
Figure 4 Ecoregions of the study area. Ecoregion 1 is non-forestland and un-active in our simulation. Ecoregions 2 to 5 stand for low hills (under 100 m), medium hills (100-250 m), high hills (250-500 m) and mountains (above 500 m), respectively |
Table 1 Species life history attributes in Taihe County, Jiangxi Province, China |
Species | Common name | Longevity (year) | Sexual maturity (year) | Shade tol. | Seed dispersal dist. | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Effective (m) | Maximum (m) | |||||
Cunninghamia lanceolata | Chinese fir | 200 | 10 | 1 | 200 | 500 |
Cupressus funebris | Chinese weeping cypress | 500 | 35 | 2 | 70 | 200 |
Pinus massoniana | Masson pine | 200 | 10 | 1 | 200 | 500 |
Pinus elliottii | Slash pine | 200 | 10 | 1 | 200 | 500 |
Schima superba | Crenate gugertree | 300 | 20 | 5 | 20 | 200 |
Cinnamomum camphora | Camphor tree | 1000 | 15 | 4 | 50 | 120 |
Phoebe zhennan | Zhennan | 1000 | 50 | 5 | 40 | 120 |
Castanopsis eyrei | Eyer evergreenchinkapin | 200 | 20 | 5 | 50 | 120 |
Castanopsis fargesii | Farges evergreenchinkapin | 150 | 30 | 5 | 60 | 250 |
Quercus fabri | Faber oak | 120 | 15 | 4 | 20 | 200 |
Cyclobalanopsis gracilis | Myrsinaleaf oak | 200 | 7 | 4 | 20 | 50 |
Liquidambar formosana | Beautiful sweetgum | 130 | 8 | 3 | 100 | 375 |
Betula luminifera | Shinybark birch | 100 | 15 | 2 | 150 | 400 |
Alnus cremastogyne | Longpeduncled alder | 125 | 5 | 3 | 15 | 60 |
Alniphyllum fortunei | Fortune Chinabells | 120 | 15 | 2 | 250 | 500 |
Sassafras tzumu | Chinese sassafras | 120 | 20 | 3 | 50 | 150 |
Melia azedarach | Chinaberry | 80 | 5 | 2 | 200 | 400 |
Populusdeltoids | Poplar | 90 | 10 | 2 | 150 | 500 |
Notes: Shade tol. stands for the species’ tolerance to shade. The value is an integer between 1and 5, where 1 means the least tolerance and 5 means the most tolerance. Seed dispersal dist. stands for the species’ effective or maximum distance for dispersing seeds. |
Figure 5 The framework for the integrated effects of land use and climate change on forest AGB |
Figure 6 The results of town land change from the ABM/LUCC model |
Figure 7 Aboveground net primary production (ANPP) for 18 species simulated by PnET-II under RCPs scenarios. (a) RCP2.6; (b) RCP4.5; (c) RCP8.5 |
Figure 8 Spatial distribution of the points for model validation and the comparison between simulated and investigated values of forest AGB |
Figure 9 Forest AGB of the total forest area under various scenarios. CC: current climate scenario |
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
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