Variability of agroecosystems and landscape service provision on the urban–rural fringe of Wuhan, Central China

Abstract

Urbanization drives changes in peri-urban farmland use which probably affects the spatial pattern of landscape service provision. This study charts patterns in these services and analyses the impacts of biophysical and social-economic factors such as land use allocation and proximity. A spatially explicit survey was conducted among 767 farmer households on the urban–rural fringe of rapidly urbanizing Wuhan (China). The hypothesis of a largely linear change with distance from the urban centre was tested separately for 7 quantified landscape services with RDA and regression analysis. Significant linear patterns were found for 4 landscape services: food, vegetables and fruits, trees, and storm water runoff reduction. Air pollution mitigation and recreation were found to be associated with nearby water rather than green infrastructure, which is likely due to the abundance of water around Wuhan. In addition, storm water runoff reduction correlated with green infrastructure (grasslands and forests). Bundling of landscape services was found to vary along the urban–rural fringe, with recreation and air pollution mitigation bundled at the urban end, while ponds and recreation bundled in the rural outer zone. In short, several provisioning and regulating services varied linearly with distance, whereas others did not, due to the strong geographical forcing by water.