Modeling and evaluating land-use/land-cover change for urban planning and sustainability: A case study of Dongying city, China

This study analyzed the land-use/land-cover change (LUCC) of Dongying city and the corresponding variation in ecosystem services. Dongying city was chosen as the study area for its typicality. Dongying city owns the Yellow River delta national nature reserve that has rich animal and plant resources and is also the core city of the Yellow River Delta High-efficient Eco-Economic Zone (YRDHEZ). The local government is subjected to considerable stress during urbanization because of the need to consider ecosystem protection and economic development at the same time. It is necessary to study the LUCC caused by urbanization and to quantify the damage caused to ecosystem services, which may provide useful scientific references for policy making and a sustainable development method. In this study, we investigated LUCC during 1995–2015 and generated LUCC maps for 1995, 2004 and 2015. The areas of grassland, farmland, water and bare land were reduced by 21.43%, 38.72%, 7.36% and 22.54%, respectively, while the area of built-up land was increased by 347.34%. In addition, a simulation LUCC map for 2025 was also obtained. The result indicated that the area of built-up land will continue to increase in 2025. Landscape metrics at a class level were calculated to quantify land-use changes with the help of FRAGSTATS 4.2 software. The result showed a sharp increase in built-up land in Dongying city. We also calculated the ecosystem service values (ESVs) according to the LUCC maps of 1995, 2004, 2015 and 2025. A continuous decrease in ESVs between 1995 and 2025 was found. The results revealed that land use of Dongying city changed dramatically according to urbanization. As other types of landscape changed into built-up land during rapid urbanization, LUCC strongly affected ecosystem services.