APPLICATION OF RESEARCH ON ECOSYSTEM SERVICES IN LANDSCAPE PLANNING

Landscape planning adjusts spatial structures and functions by altering the types of land use / land cover and the patterns of landscapes, and thus further impacts ecosystem services. This paper examines the impacts of landscape planning on ecosystem services and draws the conclusion that the control over the types of land use / land cover, the altering of landscape patterns, and the adjustment of landscape functional characteristics could change the type, quality, and performance of ecosystem services, respectively. Through an overall review on the application of ecosystem service evaluation, spatial mapping, and scenario simulation, this paper further concludes their roles in landscape planning: ecosystem service evaluation provides means to ensure scientific landscape planning; spatial mapping serves as a basis to the decision making; and scenario simulation visualizes all kinds of possibilities for an optimal choice. At the same time, such applications in landscape planning practices, ranging from green space planning, ecological conservation redline planning, land use planning to biodiversity protection planning, are exemplified. Finally, this paper summarizes existing research findings and limitations and proposes that future research is expected to study the relationship between landscape planning and ecosystem services, to build a dynamic composite planning framework that can improve ecosystem services, and to propel the research on the tradeoff-and-synergy among ecosystem services in landscape planning.