TY - JOUR
T1 - A hierarchical patch mosaic ecosystem model for urban landscapes
T2 - Model development and evaluation
AU - Zhang, Chi
AU - Wu, Jianguo
AU - Grimm, Nancy
AU - McHale, Melissa
AU - Buyantuyev, Alexander
N1 - Funding Information:
The study was supported by the National Science Foundation of China under the grant #31170347 and #30970504 , the National Science Foundation under grants #DEB-0423704 and BCS-1026865 , Central Arizona-Phoenix Long-Term Ecological Research: CAP3: Urban Sustainability in the Dynamic Environment of Central Arizona . Portions of this work based on work supported by the National Science Foundation were completed while Nancy B. Grimm was working at the Foundation. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Foundation. We thank the Ameriflux community for sharing the observational datasets. We are also grateful to Yun Ouyang, and Xiaoli Dong for their assistance with data preparation for this modeling project.
PY - 2013/2/10
Y1 - 2013/2/10
N2 - Urbanization effects on ecosystem functions are both important and complex, characterized by scale multiplicity, spatial heterogeneity, and intensive human disturbances. Integrating the hierarchical structure of urban landscape pattern with ecosystem processes through simulation modeling can facilitate our understanding of human-environment interactions in urban environment. Current ecosystem models often focus on plant physiological and biogeochemical processes in homogeneous land covers, incapable of addressing the structural complexity in urban landscapes with multiple anthropogenic drivers across a range of spatial scales. Here we present the Hierarchical Patch Mosaic-Urban Ecosystem Model (HPM-UEM), a multi-scaled model that explicitly treats spatial pattern and hierarchical structure of urban landscape by incorporating both top-down controls and bottom-up mechanisms in urban environment. By addressing six hierarchical levels from individual plant to the urbanized region, HPM-UEM provides a " hierarchical ladder" to scale up local ecosystem functions across the nested urban land hierarchies (i.e., land cover, land use, landscape, and the urbanized region), and facilitate linking ecosystem processes and socioeconomic drivers. By organizing human influences in a spatially nested hierarchical patch mosaic structure, HPM-UEM models the complex spatiotemporal pattern of multiple environmental constraints on urban ecosystem functions. The model was evaluated based on extensive datasets developed by the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network, especially the Central Arizona-Phoenix (CAP) LTER. Model testing results showed that HPM-UEM predicted both C fluxes and spatial pattern of C stocks with reasonable accuracy. HPM-UEM enabled us to assess spatial patterns and multiple-scaled dynamics of C cycle of the urban landscape, revealing the distinct productivities and C densities of different urban land types across different spatial scales. Sensitivity analyses indicated that future environmental changes and landscape modifications could have strong and complex effects on urban ecosystem functions. By matching ecological processes, anthropogenic environmental controls, and land and socioeconomic dynamics based on hierarchical levels, HPM-UEM could be coupled to multiple-scaled urban land-use models, climate models, and socioeconomic models to gain a comprehensive understanding of urban biogeochemical cycles.
AB - Urbanization effects on ecosystem functions are both important and complex, characterized by scale multiplicity, spatial heterogeneity, and intensive human disturbances. Integrating the hierarchical structure of urban landscape pattern with ecosystem processes through simulation modeling can facilitate our understanding of human-environment interactions in urban environment. Current ecosystem models often focus on plant physiological and biogeochemical processes in homogeneous land covers, incapable of addressing the structural complexity in urban landscapes with multiple anthropogenic drivers across a range of spatial scales. Here we present the Hierarchical Patch Mosaic-Urban Ecosystem Model (HPM-UEM), a multi-scaled model that explicitly treats spatial pattern and hierarchical structure of urban landscape by incorporating both top-down controls and bottom-up mechanisms in urban environment. By addressing six hierarchical levels from individual plant to the urbanized region, HPM-UEM provides a " hierarchical ladder" to scale up local ecosystem functions across the nested urban land hierarchies (i.e., land cover, land use, landscape, and the urbanized region), and facilitate linking ecosystem processes and socioeconomic drivers. By organizing human influences in a spatially nested hierarchical patch mosaic structure, HPM-UEM models the complex spatiotemporal pattern of multiple environmental constraints on urban ecosystem functions. The model was evaluated based on extensive datasets developed by the Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) network, especially the Central Arizona-Phoenix (CAP) LTER. Model testing results showed that HPM-UEM predicted both C fluxes and spatial pattern of C stocks with reasonable accuracy. HPM-UEM enabled us to assess spatial patterns and multiple-scaled dynamics of C cycle of the urban landscape, revealing the distinct productivities and C densities of different urban land types across different spatial scales. Sensitivity analyses indicated that future environmental changes and landscape modifications could have strong and complex effects on urban ecosystem functions. By matching ecological processes, anthropogenic environmental controls, and land and socioeconomic dynamics based on hierarchical levels, HPM-UEM could be coupled to multiple-scaled urban land-use models, climate models, and socioeconomic models to gain a comprehensive understanding of urban biogeochemical cycles.
KW - Carbon cycle
KW - Hierarchical patch dynamics paradigm
KW - LTER
KW - Phoenix metropolitan area
KW - Process-based model
KW - Urban ecosystem
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84870679889&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84870679889&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2012.09.020
DO - 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2012.09.020
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84870679889
SN - 0304-3800
VL - 250
SP - 81
EP - 100
JO - Ecological Modelling
JF - Ecological Modelling
ER -