Changes in ecosystem services associated with planting structures of cropland: a case study in Minle County in China

Publication date: Available online 11 January 2017 Source:Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts A/B/C Author(s): Yaqun Liu, Wei Song, Fengyun Mu The cropland ecosystem provides essential direct and indirect products and services to mankind such as food, fiber, biodiversity and soil conservation. A change of crop planting structure can change the ecosystem services of cropland by affecting land use type. In recent years, under the influence of regional comparative advantage and consumer demand changes, the crop planting structure in China has changed rapidly. However, there is still a lack of deep understanding on the effect of such a change in planting structure on the ecosystem services of cropland. Therefore, this research selected Minle County in the Heihe River Basin, which has small scattered croplands and a complex planting structure, as a study area. Based on the key time phase and optimal threshold of the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) data of the Thematic Mapper and Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (TM/ETM+) images, this study used the decision tree algorithm to classify and extract the crop planting structure in Minle County in 2007 and 2012 and to analyze the changes in its temporal and spatial patterns. Then, the market value method was adopted to estimate the effect of the change in crop planting structure on the ecosystem services of the cropland. From 2007–2012, the planting area of corn and rapeseed in Minle County increased by 5.86×103...
Source: Physics and Chemistry of the Earth, Parts ABC - Category: Science Source Type: research