On quantifying the ecological effects of land use/cover changes in red soil erosion area on integrated geo-spatial information techniques: A case study in Changting county, Fujian

Based on the integrated geo-spatial information techniques, through the interpretation of the remote sensing images in 1988, 2000 and 2007, the land use/cover changes (LUCC) data in Changting county were acquired, and the variations in environment effect in response to LUCC were studied by the calculation of ecosystem services value in the typical red soil erosion area. The results indicated: from 1988 to 2007, orchard in the study region had been increasing, and the integrated dynamic degree of LUCC was up to 4.22% and 5.71 % respectively in the two periods, which means the transition speed of land is accelerated. Ecosystem services values in the three years were 85.27×10⁸, 87.64×10⁸ and 86.16×10⁸ yuan respectively, with a trend of up-and-then-down fluctuation. Over all, forest land made the greatest contributions to the value. Finally the land use pattern of the study region in 2015 was predicted by means of the Markov model, and the ecosystem services value in 2015 will been decreased to 85.20×10⁸ yuan, which is mainly caused by the decrement of forest land and the increase of construction land. So if the economic benefits of land use are overemphasized, the sustainability of the ecological vulnerable area will be faced with severe ecological risks.