Abstract:

Aims: Dramatic land use changes induced by intensified human activities are considered to be an important driver for the loss of biodiversity. In response to the demands of biodiversity conservation and socio-economic development of Qinghai Province for land use, this study provides a method of optimizing land use layout under different scenarios based on different conservation goals.

Methods: Based on the relationships between land use type/disturbance intensity and biodiversity, this study formulated four development scenarios in Qinghai Province: Baseline scenario, Beautiful Qinghai (BQ), Intelligent Qinghai (IQ) and Harmonious Qinghai (HQ). And the land use patterns and mean species abundance (MSA) related to the local native communities of Qinghai Province in 2030 and 2050 were simulated under the four scenarios, with GeoSOS-FLUS model and FLUS-Biodiversity model, respectively.

Results: Most land use types would change significantly compared to the current spatial pattern. Under Baseline scenario, the area of wetlands, forests, and grasslands would all decline by 2030 or 2050, resulting in a slow recovery of biodiversity accordingly. The other three scenarios (BQ, IQ, and HQ) would predict various optimized spatial patterns of the future land use in the next 10 or 30 years. A large portion of medium- and high-intensity grasslands would become wetlands, primary forests, or low-intensity grasslands. Part of the conventional farmlands would be converted into high-quality farmlands, and construction land area would be reduced, thus biodiversity be greatly improved.

Conclusion: MSAvalues of the land use in Qinghai Province could achieve the target values by 2030 or 2050, and the biodiversity integrity/intactness would be increased compared with that in 2020 under all future scenarios.

Key words: conservation goal-setting/target-setting, economic development, GeoSOS-FLUS model, nature conservation, scenario simulation