26 JUN 2026 (FRI) 10:00-12:00

Geography Distinguished Seminar Series

Land Use-Ecosystem Coupled Simulation for Regional Sustainability

Date: 26 JUN 2026 (Friday)

Time: 10:00-12:00 (HKT)

Venue: CPD-3.01, The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus, HKU

Mode: Hybrid

Via Zoom: Zoom link will be provided upon successful registration

Registration link: https://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_hdetail.aspx?guest=Y&ueid=107733

---

Abstract:

Land use change is a key pathway through which human activities reshape ecosystem processes and influence regional sustainable development. Under increasing resource and environmental constraints, single-factor assessments are insufficient to capture the coupled responses of carbon, water, and ecosystem functions to land use transitions. This talk presents a body of research on land-use-driven coupled simulation, integrating the Future Land Use Simulation model (FLUS) with ecosystem models such as CoLM and LPJ-GUESS. Across global, national, and urban agglomeration scales, these studies examine how land use change affects carbon–water processes, land-use carbon fluxes, ecosystem functions, and biodiversity conservation. The findings show that climate change and rising CO₂ concentrations dominate large-scale carbon–water patterns, while land use change strongly modifies ecosystem structure and spatial heterogeneity. Decomposition analyses further reveal that indirect environmental effects can offset a substantial share of direct land-use carbon emissions and may even alter regional carbon source/sink patterns. Scenario simulations also indicate considerable future biodiversity risks and limited effective coverage by existing protected areas. Together, these studies highlight the importance of incorporating coupled carbon–water–ecosystem processes into territorial spatial planning and regional sustainability governance.

Professor Xia Li

Chair of the Scientific Committee, East China Normal University Professor, School of Geographic Sciences

Professor Xia Li is Chair of the Scientific Committee of East China Normal University and Professor at the School of Geographic Sciences. He is a Changjiang Distinguished Professor appointed by the Ministry of Education, a recipient of the National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars, Chief Scientist of a National Basic Research Program project, and Fellow of the Geographical Society of China. He also serves in leading academic roles in several national professional committees related to geographic modeling, spatiotemporal information, and natural resources information systems. Professor Li has long been engaged in research on geographic cellular automata, multi-agent systems, spatial optimization, high-resolution land use change modeling, and environmental impact assessment. He proposed the theory of geographic simulation systems and developed the GeoSOS series of geographic simulation and optimization software. He has published more than 300 academic papers and eight books, with representative work appearing in journals such as Nature Communications and Nature Sustainability. His achievements have been widely recognized, including repeated selections as an Elsevier Highly Cited Chinese Researcher and Clarivate Highly Cited Researcher, as well as the TWAS Earth Sciences Prize.

---