Scenario Analysis on Land Use Patterns in China based on Bioenergy Development from 2010 to 2025

In this paper,scenarios on land use changes in China have been designed for the next fifteen years,from 2010 to 2025,by considering the macro background of population growth,economic development,social development and technological changes.The software tool,Dynamics of Land System(DLS),is used to simulate and analyze the land uses influenced by the geophysical factors,social and economic factors and explore the driving mechanism of the spatial and temporal patterns of land uses.The DLS model has unique advantage on the simulation of land uses at large scale and can be used to explore the evolution rule of the spatial and temporal patterns of land uses influenced by geophysical,social and economic factors at regional extent.Based on scenario analyses of land uses for the next two decades,the spatial and temporal patterns of land uses are simulated and identified at the 10 km grid pixel level for the entire China.The simulation results indicate that the spatial and temporal patterns of land uses in China for the next fifteen years is under a dynamic changing process influenced by a couple of factors.It is estimated that much more cultivated land would be converted to urban residential land and industrial land in the next two decades.Forestry area is expected to expand at a moderate speed.The simulation results also show that the cultivated land decreases while both the built-up area and forestry area will increase dramatically in China for the next fifteen years.The northeastern and northwestern of China would be the sensitive zones of land use changes for the next two decades.Policy scenarios have relatively stronger impact on land use changes than baseline scenario,as indicated by the area of land use changes.The simulation results under various scenarios are of great importance to simulate the dynamic changes of land uses,which can provide valuable information for decision making on land management and land use planning.