Scenario-Based Analysis of Land Use Competition and Sustainable Land Development in Zhangye of the Heihe River Basin, China

Rapid economic growth has a significant impact on land use change, which would threaten the natural ecology. Zhangye city of the Heihe River Basin, China is an ecologically vulnerable region where land use changes significantly due to socioeconomic development and population increases. The study employed a computable general equilibrium of land use change (CGELUC) model to simulate land use change and then used a dynamic land system (DLS) model to spatialize land use change during 2015–2030 under three development scenarios in Zhangye city. The three development scenarios are the baseline scenario (BAU), the resource consumption scenario (RCS) and the green development scenario (GDS). We found that economic growth would lead to land demand increases in high value-added industries and decreases in low value-added industries. The cultivated land would decrease while the built-up area would increase. By 2030, the cultivated land will decrease by 8.16%, 10.89% and 4.16%, respectively, under BAU, RCS and GDS, while the built-up area will increase by 8.61%, 10.39% and 4.75%, respectively. The expansion of built-up area under RCS presents spatial characteristics of centralized distribution, while spatial characteristics of uniform discrete distributions are presented under GDS. The expansion of ecological land under GDS would be considerable, especially in the north of Sunan County and Gaotai County, and around the natural reserve of Ganzhou County. This paper provides a scientific reference for coordinating economic development and ecological protection in the rapidly developing urbanized areas in western China.