Hotspots of Agricultural Ecosystem Services and Farmland Biodiversity Overlap with Areas at Risk of Land Abandonment in Japan
Hotspots of Agricultural Ecosystem Services and Farmland Biodiversity Overlap with Areas at Risk of Land Abandonment in Japan
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DOI：
10.3390/land10101031
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发表时间：
2021-10
期刊：
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
K. Sasaki;S. Hotes;T. Ichinose;T. Doko;V. Wolters
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
K. Sasaki;S. Hotes;T. Ichinose;T. Doko;V. Wolters
农业提供广泛的生态系统服务，并具有促进生物多样性保护的潜力。在日本，许多与农业生态系统相关的资源都受到农田废弃的威胁。确定农业生态系统服务和农田生物多样性在哪里以及在多大程度上受到撂撂地的影响，对于制定有效战略以应对这些服务和支持它们的生物群落的潜在损失至关重要。我们的研究旨在研究与农业生态系统相关的一系列生态系统服务和生物多样性指标（用于水稻生产和其他农业生产的土地比例、可能提供景观美学的斜坡上的农业用地比例、促进乡村旅游的村庄比例、农业用地中森林边缘和灌溉池塘的密度）如何在日本群岛的市级分布。并分析其空间格局与耕地撂荒分布的关系。假设农业生态系统服务和农田生物多样性热点发生在面临撂撂撂撂撂撂撂撂区。聚类分析确定了四种不同的生态系统服务包类型，其中两种类型代表了专门从事农业生产的地区，另外两种类型为不同的生物群落提供了高水平的文化服务和栖息地。后两者位于丘陵和山区，占日本稻米生产的58%，其他农业生产的27%，景观美学的77%，乡村旅游的77%，森林边缘的64%和灌溉池塘的87%。为了支持这一假设，这些地区的农田被遗弃现象很明显，64%的最近被遗弃的农田位于44%的农业用地被发现的地方。这种空间重叠表明，如果目前的撂耕模式继续下去，可能会发生生态系统服务和生物多样性的大量损失。为了防止农业生态系统服务功能和农田生物多样性的大规模丧失，应对当前撂撂区趋势的措施应优先考虑丘陵和山区，未来的研究应进一步评估农业区的多重功能，以完善旨在确保日本农村可持续发展的政策。
Agriculture provides a wide range of ecosystem services and has the potential to contribute to biodiversity conservation. In Japan, many of the resources associated with agroecosystems are threatened by farmland abandonment. Identifying where and to what extent agricultural ecosystem services and farmland biodiversity are affected by farmland abandonment is essential for developing effective strategies to counter the potential loss of these services and the biological communities that support them. Our study aimed to examine how a set of indicators for ecosystem services and biodiversity linked to agroecosystems (proportions of land dedicated to rice production and other agricultural production, proportion of agricultural land on slopes potentially providing landscape aesthetics, proportion of villages promoting rural tourism, and densities of forest edges and irrigation ponds in agricultural land) are distributed at the municipal level across the Japanese Archipelago, and to analyze their spatial patterns in relation to the distribution of farmland abandonment. It was hypothesized that hotspots of agricultural ecosystem services and farmland biodiversity occur in areas at risk of farmland abandonment owing to shared drivers. The cluster analysis identified four distinct ecosystem service bundle types, two of them representing areas specializing in agricultural production, while the other two provided high levels of cultural services and habitats for diverse biological communities. The latter two bundles were located in hilly and mountainous areas and accounted for 58% of rice production, 27% of other agricultural production, 77% of landscape aesthetics, 77% of rural tourism, 64% of forest edges, and 87% of irrigation ponds in Japan. In support of the hypothesis, farmland abandonment was pronounced in these areas, with 64% of recently abandoned fields located where 44% of agricultural land was found. This spatial overlap suggests that substantial losses of ecosystem services and biodiversity may occur if current patterns of farmland abandonment continue. In order to prevent large-scale losses of agricultural ecosystem services and farmland biodiversity, measures to counteract the ongoing abandonment trends should prioritize hilly and mountainous areas, and future studies should further evaluate the multiple functions of agricultural areas to improve policies that aim to ensure sustainable development of rural areas in Japan.