Future land-use changes and its impacts on terrestrial ecosystem services: A review

Area of Science:

• Environmental Science
• Ecology
• Geospatial Analysis

Background:

• Terrestrial ecosystem services (ES) are critically threatened by land use and land cover changes (LULCC).
• Drivers of LULCC include economic, social, political, and environmental factors like climate change.
• Anticipating future LULCC is crucial for understanding and mitigating impacts on ES supply.

Purpose of the Study:

• To conduct a systematic bibliographic review on future LULCC and their implications for provisioning, regulating, and cultural ecosystem services.
• To synthesize current research methodologies and findings in this domain.
• To identify research gaps and provide insights for future scientific endeavors.

Main Methods:

• A rigorous bibliographic review was performed, initially identifying 957 papers.
• 79 papers meeting specific criteria were selected for the systematic review.
• Analysis focused on geographical distribution, LULCC modeling techniques, ES assessment methods, and service types studied.

Main Results:

• Studies are predominantly concentrated in Asia (55.70%) and Europe (17.72%).
• Commonly used LULCC models include cellular automata (30.86%), CLUE-S (8.64%), and Land Change Modeler (8.64%).
• InVEST model (24.04%) and prior equations (12.5%) are leading methods for ES impact assessment, primarily focusing on provisioning and regulating services.

Conclusions:

• Most reviewed studies lack external validation, indicating a need for more robust assessment frameworks.
• The review identifies key research gaps and trends in understanding future LULCC impacts on ES.
• Findings offer essential contributions to the scientific community and practitioners for informed decision-making.