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The impact of global cropland changes on terrestrial ecosystem services value, 1992–2015

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Abstract

From 1992 to 2015, ecological environment has been threatened by the changes of cropland around the world. In order to evaluate the impact of cropland changes on ecosystem, we calculated the response of terrestrial ecosystem service values (TESVs) variation to cropland conversion based on land-use data from European Space Agency (ESA). The results showed that cropland changes were responsible for an absolute loss of $166.82 billion, equivalent to 1.17% of global TESVs in 1992. Among the different regions, the impact of cropland changes on TESVs was significant in South America and Africa but not obvious in Oceania, Asia and Europe. Cropland expansion from tropical forest was the main reason for decreases in TESVs globally, especially in South America, Africa and Asia. The effect of wetland converted to cropland was notable in North America and Europe while grassland converted to cropland played an important role in Oceania, Africa and Asia. In Europe, the force of urban expansion cannot be ignored as well. The conversion of cropland to tropical or temperate forest partly compensated for the loss of TESVs globally, especially in Asia.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China

    Yuanyuan Li & Minghong Tan

  2. International College, University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Yuanyuan Li & Minghong Tan

  3. State Key Laboratory of Environmental Criteria and Risk Assessment, Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, Beijing, 100012, China

    Yuanyuan Li & Haiguang Hao

Authors
  1. Yuanyuan Li
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  2. Minghong Tan
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  3. Haiguang Hao
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Correspondence to Minghong Tan.

Additional information

Foundation: National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.41771116, No.41501095; National Basic Research Program of China, No.2015CB452705; National Key Research and Development Program of China, No.2016YFC0502103

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Li, Y., Tan, M. & Hao, H. The impact of global cropland changes on terrestrial ecosystem services value, 1992–2015. J. Geogr. Sci. 29, 323–333 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-019-1600-7

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-019-1600-7

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