Ecological landscape regulation approaches in Xilingol, Inner Mongolia: an urban ecosystem services perspective

ABSTRACT

Most cities or leagues in Inner Mongolia are the result of resource-based industrialization processes and animal husbandry development, leading to a heterogeneous composition and configuration of urban areas seldom guided by proper urban ecological landscape regulation policies. In this paper, we chose Xilingol as a case study, and put forward novel ecological landscape regulation approaches based on ecosystem services (ES) for achieving sustainable development in it. An urban ES simulation model and an urban classification model were used to assess the change of ES and to guide the future urban ecological landscape regulation. The results showed a rapid land use change in different subsystems of Xilingol from 2008 to 2013, providing relative values of each type of land per unit in three subsystems (core urban area, suburb and rural), and detected the change of ES in three subsystems and the change of ES per capita in the whole administrative urban area. We suggest that (a) long-term, stable, and ecosystem-services-based land use policies and urban ecological landscape regulation approaches are needed; and (b) highlight an urban ecological landscape regulation approach covering economic, social and natural dimensions for achieving sustainable development.

KEYWORDS:

• Urbanization
• ecological landscape regulation
• land use change
• ecosystem services
• human well-being
• sustainable development

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the ‘13th Five-Year Plan’ National key research and development program of China (2016YFC0501108) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (71273260).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the ‘13th Five-Year Plan’ National key research and development program of China [2016YFC0501108] and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [71273260]