scholarly journals Impacts of Land Use Change on the Regional Climate: A Structural Equation Modeling Study in Southern China

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhanqi Wang ◽  
Bingqing Li ◽  
Jun Yang

With the frequent human activities operating on the earth, the impacts of land use change on the regional climate are increasingly perceptible. Under the background of the rapid urbanization, understanding the impacts of land use change on the regional climate change is vital and significant. In this study, we investigated the relationships between land use change and regional climate change through a structural equation model. Southern China was selected as the study area for its rapid urbanization and different structure of land use among its counties. The results indicate that the path coefficients of “vegetation,” “Urban and surrounding area,” and “other” to “climate” are −0.42, 0.20, and 0.46, respectively. Adding vegetation area is the main method to mitigate regional climate change. Urban and surrounding area and other areas influence regional climate by increasing temperature and precipitation to a certain extent. Adding grassland and forestry, restraining sprawl of built-up area, and making the most use of unused land are efficient ways to mitigate the regional climate change in Southern China. The results can provide feasible recommendations to land use policy maker.

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jinyan Zhan ◽  
Juan Huang ◽  
Tao Zhao ◽  
Xiaoli Geng ◽  
Yihui Xiong

China has experienced rapid urbanization since 1978, and the dramatic change in land cover is expected to have significant impacts on the climate change. Some models have been used to simulate the relationship between land use and land cover change and climate change; however, there is still no sufficient evidence for the impacts of urbanization on the regional climate. This study aims to identify the impact of urban land use change on regional temperature and precipitation in summer in the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangshan Metropolitan area during 2030–2040 based on the analysis of the simulation results of WRF model. Firstly, we analyzed the land use change and climate change during 1995–2005 in the study area. The impacts of future urbanization on regional climate change were then simulated. The results indicate that urbanization in this area has affected the regional climate and has the potential to increase temperature and precipitation in the summer of 2030–2040. These research results can offer decision-making support information related to future planning strategies in urban environments in consideration of regional climate change.


2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xinli Ke ◽  
Feng Wu ◽  
Caixue Ma

Urban land expansion plays an important role in climate change. It is significant to select a reasonable urban expansion pattern to mitigate the impact of urban land expansion on the regional climate in the rapid urbanization process. In this paper, taking Wuhan metropolitan as the case study area, and three urbanization patterns scenarios are designed to simulate spatial patterns of urban land expansion in the future using the Partitioned and Asynchronous Cellular Automata Model. Then, simulation results of land use are adjusted and inputted into WRF (Weather Research and Forecast) model to simulate regional climate change. The results show that: (1) warming effect is strongest under centralized urbanization while it is on the opposite under decentralized scenario; (2) the warming effect is stronger and wider in centralized urbanization scenario than in decentralized urbanization scenario; (3) the impact trends of urban land use expansion on precipitation are basically the same under different scenarios; (4) and spatial distribution of rainfall was more concentrated under centralized urbanization scenario, and there is a rainfall center of wider scope, greater intensity. Accordingly, it can be concluded that decentralized urbanization is a reasonable urbanization pattern to mitigate climate change in rapid urbanization period.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (5) ◽  
pp. 3087-3103 ◽  
Author(s):  
Huanghe Gu ◽  
Zhongbo Yu ◽  
Chuanguo Yang ◽  
Qin Ju ◽  
Tao Yang ◽  
...  

Abstract. An ensemble simulation of five regional climate models (RCMs) from the coordinated regional downscaling experiment in East Asia is evaluated and used to project future regional climate change in China. The influences of model uncertainty and internal variability on projections are also identified. The RCMs simulate the historical (1980–2005) climate and future (2006–2049) climate projections under the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) RCP4.5 scenario. The simulations for five subregions in China, including northeastern China, northern China, southern China, northwestern China, and the Tibetan Plateau, are highlighted in this study. Results show that (1) RCMs can capture the climatology, annual cycle, and interannual variability of temperature and precipitation and that a multi-model ensemble (MME) outperforms that of an individual RCM. The added values for RCMs are confirmed by comparing the performance of RCMs and global climate models (GCMs) in reproducing annual and seasonal mean precipitation and temperature during the historical period. (2) For future (2030–2049) climate, the MME indicates consistent warming trends at around 1 ∘C in the entire domain and projects pronounced warming in northern and western China. The annual precipitation is likely to increase in most of the simulation region, except for the Tibetan Plateau. (3) Generally, the future projected change in annual and seasonal mean temperature by RCMs is nearly consistent with the results from the driving GCM. However, changes in annual and seasonal mean precipitation exhibit significant inter-RCM differences and possess a larger magnitude and variability than the driving GCM. Even opposite signals for projected changes in average precipitation between the MME and the driving GCM are shown over southern China, northeastern China, and the Tibetan Plateau. (4) The uncertainty in projected mean temperature mainly arises from the internal variability over northern and southern China and the model uncertainty over the other three subregions. For the projected mean precipitation, the dominant uncertainty source is the internal variability over most regions, except for the Tibetan Plateau, where the model uncertainty reaches up to 60 %. Moreover, the model uncertainty increases with prediction lead time across all subregions.


Complexity ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 ◽  
pp. 1-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pengyan Zhang ◽  
Yanyan Li ◽  
Wenlong Jing ◽  
Dan Yang ◽  
Yu Zhang ◽  
...  

Urbanization is causing profound changes in ecosystem functions at local and regional scales. The net primary productivity (NPP) is an important indicator of global change, rapid urbanization and climate change will have a significant impact on NPP, and urban expansion and climate change in different regions have different impacts on NPP, especially in densely populated areas. However, to date, efforts to quantify urban expansion and climate change have been limited, and the impact of long-term continuous changes in NPP has not been well understood. Based on land use data, night light data, NPP data, climate data, and a series of social and economic data, we performed a comprehensive analysis of land use change in terms of type and intensity and explored the pattern of urban expansion and its relationship with NPP and climate change for the period of 2000–2015, taking Zhengzhou, China, as an example. The results show that the major form of land use change was cropland to built-up land during the 2000–2015 period, with a total area of 367.51 km2 converted. The NPP exhibited a generally increasing trend in the study area except for built-up land and water area. The average correlation coefficients between temperature and NPP and precipitation and NPP were 0.267 and 0.020, respectively, indicating that an increase in temperature and precipitation can promote NPP despite significant spatial differences. During the examined period, most expansion areas exhibited an increasing NPP trend, indicating that the influence of urban expansion on NPP is mainly characterized by an evident influence of the expansion area. The study can provide a reference for Zhengzhou and even the world's practical research to improve land use efficiency, increase agricultural productivity and natural carbon sinks, and maintain low-carbon development.


2017 ◽  
Vol 353 ◽  
pp. 86-94 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhouyuan Li ◽  
Wenzhao Wu ◽  
Xuehua Liu ◽  
Brian D. Fath ◽  
Hailian Sun ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (16) ◽  
pp. 6423
Author(s):  
Lanhua Luo ◽  
Qing Zhou ◽  
Hong S. He ◽  
Liangxia Duan ◽  
Gaoling Zhang ◽  
...  

Quantitative assessment of the impact of land use and climate change on hydrological processes is of great importance to water resources planning and management. The main objective of this study was to quantitatively assess the response of runoff to land use and climate change in the Zhengshui River Basin of Southern China, a heavily used agricultural basin. The Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) was used to simulate the river runoff for the Zhengshui River Basin. Specifically, a soil database was constructed based on field work and laboratory experiments as input data for the SWAT model. Following SWAT calibration, simulated results were compared with observed runoff data for the period 2006 to 2013. The Nash-Sutcliffe Efficiency Coefficient (NSE) and the correlation coefficient (R2) for the comparisons were greater than 0.80, indicating close agreement. The calibrated models were applied to simulate monthly runoff in 1990 and 2010 for four scenarios with different land use and climate conditions. Climate change played a dominant role affecting runoff of this basin, with climate change decreasing simulated runoff by −100.22% in 2010 compared to that of 1990, land use change increasing runoff in this basin by 0.20% and the combination of climate change and land use change decreasing runoff by 60.8m3/s. The decrease of forestland area and the corresponding increase of developed land and cultivated land area led to the small increase in runoff associated with land use change. The influence of precipitation on runoff was greater than temperature. The soil database used to model runoff with the SWAT model for the basin was constructed using a combination of field investigation and laboratory experiments, and simulations of runoff based on that new soil database more closely matched observations of runoff than simulations based on the generic Harmonized World Soil Database (HWSD). This study may provide an important reference to guide management decisions for this and similar watersheds.


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