Relocating built-up land for biodiversity conservation in an uncertain future

Wenze Yue, Qiushi Zhou, Mengmeng Li*, Jasper van Vliet

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

Land use changes associated with habitat loss, fragmentation, and degradation exert profoundly detrimental impacts on biodiversity conservation. Urban development is one of the prevailing anthropogenic disturbances to wildlife habitat, because these developments are often considered permanent and irreversible. As a result, the potential benefits of built-up land relocation for biodiversity conservation have remained largely unexplored in environmental management practices. Here, we analyze recent built-up land relocation in Shanghai and explore how such restoration programs can affect future land change trajectories with regards to biodiversity conservation. Results show that 187.78 km2 built-up land in Shanghai was restored to natural habitat between 2017 and 2020. Further simulation analysis highlights that relocating built-up land can substantially promote conserve biodiversity. In particular, there would be less habitat loss, better natural habitat quality and more species habitat-suitable range under the scenarios with built-up land relocation. Species extinction assessment suggest that amphibians, mammals, and reptiles will all have an increasingly high extinction risk without built-up land relocation. However, there will even be a marginal decrease in extinction risk over time for mammals and reptiles if the relocation of built-up land is permitted, but still a moderate increase in extinction risk for amphibians. This study highlights the importance of incorporating rigorous conservation planning prior to development activities, thereby underpinning a sustainable approach to environmental management.

Original languageEnglish
Article number118706
Pages (from-to)1-12
Number of pages12
JournalJournal of Environmental Management
Volume345
Early online date1 Aug 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2023

Bibliographical note

Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Major Projects of National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21ZDA064). The Open Access funding was provided by Lib4RI – a joint library for the Research Institutes within the ETH Domain. JvV was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO in the form of a VIDI grant (Grant No VI.Vidi.198.008). This research contributes to the Global Land Programme (www.glp.earth).

Funding Information:
This study was supported by the Major Projects of National Social Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 21ZDA064 ). The Open Access funding was provided by Lib4RI – a joint library for the Research Institutes within the ETH Domain. JvV was supported by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research NWO in the form of a VIDI grant (Grant No VI.Vidi.198.008 ). This research contributes to the Global Land Programme ( www.glp.earth ).

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors

Keywords

  • Land use change
  • Natural habitat
  • Resettlement
  • Scenario simulation
  • Urban expansion

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