International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health Article Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Qinghai Lake Region of the Tibetan Plateau and Its Impact on Ecosystem Services Jian Gong 1,2,*, Jingye Li 1 ID , Jianxin Yang 1, Shicheng Li 1 ID and Wenwu Tang 3,4 1 Department of Land Resource Management, School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), 388 Lumo Road, Hongshan District, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China;
[email protected] (J.L.);
[email protected] (J.Y.);
[email protected] (S.L.) 2 Key Labs of Law Evaluation of Ministry of Land and Resources of China, 388 Lumo Road, Hongshan District, Wuhan 430074, Hubei, China 3 Department of Geography and Earth Sciences, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223, USA;
[email protected] 4 Center for Applied Geographic Information Science, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, 9201 University City Blvd., Charlotte, NC 28223, USA * Correspondence:
[email protected] Academic Editor: Yu-Pin Lin Received: 15 June 2017; Accepted: 17 July 2017; Published: 21 July 2017 Abstract: Exploration of land use and land cover change (LULCC) and its impacts on ecosystem services in Tibetan plateau is valuable for landscape and environmental conservation. In this study, we conduct spatial analysis on empirical land use and land cover data in the Qinghai Lake region for 1990, 2000, and 2010 and simulate land cover patterns for 2020. We then evaluate the impacts of LULCC on ecosystem service value (ESV), and analyze the sensitivity of ESV to LULCC to identify the ecologically sensitive area.