Land-Use Change and its Effects in Charchan Oasis, Xinjiang, China

Changes in land use and land cover are known to impact ecosystem services and functions. In this study, land use characteristics were combined with global and China-specific ecosystem coefficients to quantify land-use and ecosystem service changes in Charchan Oasis. Results indicated that: (i) the total values of ecosystem services in Charchan Oasis were increased 84M$ from 1972 to 2013; (ii) the aggregated ecosystem service values for water bodies, grasslands, forest lands, and barren lands were 9890% of the total value for all land types; (iii) waste treatment, soil formation, biodiversity protection, and water supply were ecological functions with the highest service values, contributing approximately 65% of the total service values; and (iv) ecosystem service values estimated in this study were inelastic with respect to the value coefficients, therefore, the estimation results were believable. Copyright (c) 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.