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 significantly impacted 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 of studies projecting future LULCC and their implications on ES supply.
• To identify trends, methodologies, and research gaps in this field.
• To provide insights for scientists and practitioners in land use and ecosystem service research.

Main Methods:

• A rigorous bibliographic review was performed, initially identifying 957 papers.
• A final selection of 79 papers met the inclusion criteria for the review.
• Analysis focused on geographical distribution, modeling techniques, and ES impact assessment methods.

Main Results:

• Studies are concentrated in Asia (55.70%) and Europe (17.72%).
• Predominant LULCC models include Cellular Automata (30.86%), CLUE-S (8.64%), and Land Change Modeler (8.64%).
• InVEST (24.04%) and prior equations (12.5%) are common for ES impact assessment, primarily focusing on provisioning and regulating services. A notable lack of external validation was observed.

Conclusions:

• The review highlights a concentration of research in specific regions and identifies widely used modeling approaches.
• A significant gap exists in the external validation of models assessing future LULCC impacts on ES.
• This synthesis offers valuable insights into the current state of research, guiding future studies and land management practices.