The article I wrote about entails using ecosystem service values to assess the ecological values of corresponding land-use types, essentially to evaluate the ecological effects of regional land-use change within the study area of Yongsheng County in north west Yunnan Province between the years 1988 – 1999.
The main objective that was noted by the author were to: “(1) identify land-use change processes in China’s southwest agricultural landscape within the past 11 years through analysis of the dynamics of landscape metrics; and (2) consider relative changes from the global mean economic value of the ecosystem service in order to evaluate the ecological effects of LUCC.” (Peng et al, 2006, 317).
Land use/land cover change (LUCC) not only results in changes to the landscape structure of the Earth’s surface, but also influences material cycles and energy flow in the landscape, and biodiversity and important ecological processes in a region. This makes it worthwhile to study the relationship between the LUCC and the eco-environment to understand potential changes in the regional ecological environment. Assessing the ecological quality of regional land-use types according to the proportional relationship of the ecosystem service is necessary as well as then evaluating the ecological value change due to LUCC.
This methodological approach and the procedures used was appropriate for the research question as it analyzed land-use change with transition matrix identifying important processes, change in landscape diversity, and change in spatial configuration of landscape elements, change in patch shape. The ecological effects of land-use change were explored through integrated ecological effects of land use change in the whole country and spatial differentiation of ecological effects of land-use change. These factors all contribute to the arguments established by Peng et al that land-use change is largely existent due to human factors and affect ecological structures of the land. Due to the complexity and large scale of the paper, it is often very hard to articulate the grand scheme of the project into a concise and easy to understand manner. This paper should be commended for its easiness to read and follow through each procedure. For this reason, I would give this paper a 9/10. The only criticism would be its absence of translation of data into maps which would perfectly illustrate the results of the findings.
Article: Ecological effects associated with land-use change in China’s southwest agricultural landscape. International Journal of Sustainable Development & World Ecology