Profit and loss analysis on ecosystem services value based on land use change in Yellow River Delta

With the aim to investigate variations in ecosystem services in response to land use changes, techniques of remote sensing and geographic information system were integrated into the evaluation model to calculate the ecosystem services value in the Yellow River Delta from 1992 to 2005. The results indicated that the total ecosystem services value in 1992, 1996, 2001 and 2005 were 48.75×108, 49.75×108, 58.18×108 and 49.22×108 yuan, respectively. Tide land, shrub and grass land, and water body were the land use types that made the greatest contributions to the total ecosystem services value of the study region. The accumulative ecosystem services value of three land use types accounted for over 80% of the total value in the Yellow River Delta, indicating that these land use categories played important and remarkable roles in ecosystem services in the study region. The land use pattern of the Yellow River Delta in 2010 was predicted using the Markov model. The predicted total ecosystem services value in 2010 would reach 47.77×108 yuan. The total ecosystem services value might decrease further if the encroachment of coastline was taken into account.