Exploring the influence of future land use changes on the cultural ecosystem services in a fast-developing region

Demand for urban development and the exploration of sustainable development pathways cause increasing challenges in land use change management. Cultural ecosystem services play an important role in the maintenance and optimization of the urban system, and are non-substitutable. Research into the integration of land use change and the response of cultural ecosystem services can help to ensure socio-economic and human well-being in the context of government intervention. We leverage a social survey, land use maps, government statistics and environmental driving data, and construct an integrated research framework through geospatial model, system dynamics and land use simulation model to predict land use changes in Nanjing under different future development scenarios and simulate the influence of multiple land use scenarios on the supply of cultural services. The results demonstrate that under the ecological protection scenario (EOP), all cultural services were maximized, and under the coordinated development scenario (COD), the needs of the economy and cultural services are more balanced, under the economic priority scenario (ECP), biodiversity and recreation services are at risk of erosion. Tourism and development, aesthetic and historical services show a tendency to improve with economic development, but biodiversity and recreation services that rely more on the natural environment may be negatively affected. To maintain social, economic and ecological well-being in Nanjing our scenarios may need to be hybridized. For instance, administrative districts already considered to have strong economic development could apply the EOP, while others can apply the COD.