The impact of human activities on natural capital and ecosystem services of natural pastures in North Xinjiang, China

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	The impact of human activities on natural capital and ecosystem services of natural pastures in North Xinjiang, China
	Yan Maochao
	2012
关键词	Ecosystems Animals Behavioral research Carbon dioxide Computer simulation Economics Food supply Forestry Geologic models Productivity Soil conservation Soil moisture
英文摘要	The implementation of systemic modeling methods to understand the variation of natural capital and ecosystem services in response to economic activities has huge significance for sound decision-making also at local scale. This paper reports the results of an investigation performed on the grassland ecosystem in North Xinjiang. The Emergy Synthesis method introduced by H.T. Odum in the 1980s was used to dynamically simulate the trend of grassland natural capital and its related ecosystem services. The simulation of natural capital was based on indexes of standing biomass, soil organic matter, soil nitrogen and soil water storages; ecosystem services were assessed by means of indexes of annual CO2 uptake, O2 release, forage supply as animal feed, food supply for human nutrition, and finally soil conservation. Results indicate that an upper limit of livestock carrying capacity in the region was reached in the year 1994; after that year the natural capital and main ecosystem services of the grassland ecosystem declined steadily. The emergy based currency equivalent value of the grassland ecosystem in terms of ecosystem services was higher than 87.3 billion Yuan RMB/yr in 1990. Such a value declined to 62.3 billion Yuan RMB/yr in 2010. Similarly, the total emergy based value of natural capital was about 331.7 billion Yuan RMB in 1990 and dropped to 155.6 billion Yuan RMB in 2010. According to the simulation model, the natural capital components such as biomass and soil stocks, the ecosystem services and the replacement value declined due to intensive herding and disturbance from human activities. Such trend is not sustainable because it exceeds the renewable carrying capacity of the area, but it is likely to continue until fundamental changes in human behavior and management of the grassland and animal husbandry occur or until the whole area is fully degraded. Social reasons prevent from simply decreasing the intensity of the livestock activities that provide living means to a large number of local farmers. As a consequence, the traditional low-productivity and environmental unfriendly grazing farming system should gradually be converted into a human-managed pasture based on farming higher productivity pasture crops in a small part of the local land, in order to decrease the grazing pressure on natural grassland of North Xinjiang. 2011.
出处	Ecological Modelling
卷	225 页:28-39
收录类别	EI
语种	英语
内容类型	EI期刊论文
源URL	[http://ir.igsnrr.ac.cn/handle/311030/27612]
专题	地理科学与资源研究所_历年回溯文献
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Yan Maochao. The impact of human activities on natural capital and ecosystem services of natural pastures in North Xinjiang, China. 2012.