Land use in the Greater Mekong Subregion–A Challenge for Society, Economy and Biodiversity

Time:  October 11-14, 2010 

Organized by: Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG)

　　　　　　Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, and

　　　　　　University of Hohenheim, Germany

Venue:  Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG)

　　　　　　  Chinese Academy of Sciences Research Centre

　　　　　　  Menglun Township, Mengla CountyYunnan Province 666303, PR China

Background

"Techniques should be developed or improved that integrate different types of information […] into a package that is easy to understand, visually attractive, and that allows modelling of different development options.” (Cao et al. 2003)

Land use in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) is undergoing serious alteration. The region has increasingly become part of the global economy due to the impacts of globalization and remarkable improvements in infrastructure. This results in far-reaching and often unpredictable impacts on man and his environment.  Specifically,  the socio-economic situation  of rural people as well as the exceptional  biological diversity are affected.  Within the GMS, Xishuangbanna is famous for its cultural and environmental diversity and therefore well suited for a case study on land-use changes and its consequences. 

The goal of development should be the sustainable improvement of living conditions taking into account the preservation of environmental services and capacities. In the GMS biodiversity is not only worth to be protected because of its ecological uniqueness but also because of its potential economic value. 

The sustainability of development and land-use change processes requires the understanding of the underlying driving forces as well as the consequences of specific decisions. It has been, therefore, the objective of this research co-operation to analyse social, economic, and ecological framework conditions in Naban River Watershed National Nature Reserve and the possible consequences of land-use change. Based on this analysis we developed a GIS-based scenario tool for modelling development trajectories on regional scale. Such a modelling tool supports the assessment of land-use change with regard to their social, economic, hydrological and ecological implications. The overall framework can be used in decision making processes affecting land-use patterns.

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