Ecological and environmental effects of land use change in rapid urbanization: The case of hangzhou, China

•We found significant ecological and environmental effects of land use change in Hangzhou, China.•Ratio of ecosystem service value to GDP fell from 5.8% to 0.6% over 1995-2014.•The net carbon emissions increased by 254% from 1995 to 2014.•Bringing ecological and environmental effects into land use decision is feasible and promising.

Land use changes sharply under rapid urbanization, yet its ecological and environmental effects are often neglected in land use decisions. Using the case of Hangzhou, China, we analyze the ecological and environmental effects of land use changes, including ecosystem services value (ESV) and carbon emissions, based on Landsat TM images from 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2014. We found significant ecological and environmental effects of land use changes under rapid urbanization. The value of ecosystem services in Hangzhou decreased from 546.7 million USD in 1995 to 448.97 million USD in 2014, and the ratio of ESV to GDP decreased from 5.8% to 0.6%. The net carbon emissions associated with land use changes increased from 4.26 million tons in 1995 to 15.10 million tons in 2014, mainly due to the increase of built-up land carbon emissions and the decrease of forest land carbon sink. The ESV is unevenly distributed spatially and low ESV spread from the central to the peripheral area. We use scenario analysis to illustrate that economic growth and environmental protection could be coordinated by bringing ecological and environmental effects into land use decisions.