Land management to reconcile ecosystem services supply and demand mismatches—A case study in Shanghai municipality, China

Abstract

© 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. City managers need to understand how land use and land cover (LULC) change in an urban landscape can affect future land degradation and conditions for ecosystem services (ESs) supply and demand. Optimal land use and land management requires explicit spatial mapping of ESs supply and demand under alternative land use scenarios. In this study, we applied spatially explicit models to predict changes in ESs supply and demand, and their coupling mechanisms, under one baseline scenario and three stakeholder-defined LULC change scenarios (developed, planning, policy) in Shanghai municipality, China. The results suggest that the policy scenario could significantly increase ESs supply and restore degraded urban areas, but would not guarantee that supply meets demand for four key ESs tested: water retention, particulate matter removal, carbon sequestration, and recreation. However, the policy scenario significantly reduced the shortfalls and spatial mismatches in water retention, particulate matter removal and recreation services, and also greatly restored deficit areas for all four ESs. This is valuable scientific evidence that ESs supply and demand information can be incorporated into urban land management planning in a spatially explicit manner, in order to control or prevent future potential land degradation.