Urban land use optimization in mining area from the perspective of maximizing ecosystem services

Land use change and its ecological and environmental consequence in mining cities have been one of the most profound transformations taking place across the developing countries. Managers and researchers are working for the optimization of land use in mining cities to minimize ecological losses and improve the living environment. In this paper, an approach of optimizing the land use pattern from the perspective of maximizing ecosystem services was proposed based on the multi-objective optimization theory and Genetic Algorithm. The Liaoyuan City of the Jilin province in China was chosen as the case area. The results showed that there were 10 optimal scenarios of land use in study area to sustain higher comprehensive capacity of ecosystem services (including carbon storage, food and material productions, as well as soil conservation). And the tenth land use scenario with the highest carbon storage services was suggested as the prior land use optimization planning option. If planned as the tenth scenario, the mining patches and meadows in study area would be reduced significantly; the area of irrigated croplands, groves, woods, shrubs, shoals/wetlands and scenic sites would be increased; the built-up lands and transportation lands would also be increased slightly. It is hoped that this land use optimization approach would be used in the future land use planning in mining cities to improve the environment by supplying multiple ecosystem services with the demand of the economic and social development.