Impacts of strict cropland protection on water yield: A case study of Wuhan, China

Xinli Ke, Liye Wang, Yanchun Ma, Kunpeng Pu, Ting Zhou, Bangyong Xiao, Jiahe Wang*

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Land use and land cover change is a critical factor of ecosystem services, while water yield plays a vital role in sustainable development. The impact of urban expansion on water yield has long been discussed, but water yield change resulting from cropland protection is seldom concerned. Therefore, this paper aims to investigate the impacts of cropland protection on water yield by comparing the water yield in two cropland protection scenarios (i.e., Strict Cropland Protection scenario and No Cropland Protection scenario). Specifically, the LAND System Cellular Automata for Potential Effects (LANDSCAPE) model was employed to simulate land use maps in the two scenarios, while Water Yield module in the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model was used to calculate water yield. The results show water yield would increase by 8.7 × 10 7 m 3 in the No Cropland Protection scenario and 9.4 × 10 7 m 3 in the Strict Cropland Protection scenario. We conclude that implementation of strict cropland protection in rapid urbanizing areas may cause more water yield, which is also a prerequisite of potential urban flooding risk. This study throws that it is not wise to implement strict cropland protection policy in an area of rapid urbanization.

Original languageEnglish
Article number184
Pages (from-to)1-16
Number of pages16
JournalSustainability (Switzerland)
Volume11
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2019

Funding

Two categories of terrain datasets, digital elevation model (DEM) and slope, were used to calculate the suitability map in this research. The DEM dataset was acquired from the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), which is conducted by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of USA (NASA) and USA National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) [50]. The spatial resolution of the DEM dataset from SRTM in the study area is 90 m originally, but we resampled it to 100 m to consist with the resolution of land use datasets. Then, the slope raster was generated by the DEM data by using the “Slope” tool in ArcGIS10.2. Funding: This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [Grant numbers 41371113, 41101098, 41701194], the National Social Science Foundation of China [Grant number 13CGL092], the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities [2662017PY063], and the Outstanding Youth Foundation Project for Humanities and Social Sciences in Huazhong Agricultural University.

FundersFunder number
National Social Science Foundation of China
Outstanding Youth Foundation Project for Humanities and Social Sciences in Huazhong Agricultural University
National Natural Science Foundation of China41371113, 13CGL092, 41701194, 41101098
Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities2662017PY063

    Keywords

    • Cropland protection
    • Ecosystem services
    • Land use change
    • Urban expansion
    • Water yield

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