Ecosystem services trade-offs and determinants in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2000 to 2015

Xibao Xu; Guishan Yang; Yan Tan; Jingping Liu; Huizhi Hu

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.046

Ecosystem services trade-offs and determinants in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt from 2000 to 2015

Sci Total Environ. 2018 Sep 1:634:1601-1614. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.046. Epub 2018 Apr 18.

Authors

Xibao Xu¹, Guishan Yang², Yan Tan³, Jingping Liu², Huizhi Hu²

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China. Electronic address: xbxu@niglas.ac.cn.
² Key Laboratory of Watershed Geographic Sciences, Nanjing Institute of Geography and Limnology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China.
³ Department of Geography, Environment and Population, The University of Adelaide, Adelaide 5000, Australia.

PMID: 29728010
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.04.046

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ES) play an important role in sustaining ecological security, sustainable development and human well-being. This study investigates spatio-temporal changes in five key ES in the Yangtze River Economic Belt of China in 2000-2015-water conservation (WC), soil retention (SR), carbon sequestration (CS), biodiversity conservation (BC) and food supply (FS), by applying three ecological models (InVEST, RUSLE, CASA). Employing scenario simulations, the study quantifies distinct effects of significant factors on ES changes. Using spatial overlapping and Spearman's rank correlation respectively, the study distinguishes spatial patterns of synergies and trade-offs between five ES at the grid and city-scales. The results show that CS, FS, WC and SR presented an overall upward trend, increasing by 22.7%, 16.9%, 6.4% and 4.7%, respectively, while BC remained steady with a marginal degradation. Change in these five ES exhibited dramatic spatial heterogeneity. Across 131 cities, 98.5% of which increased in CS, 87.7% in WC, 68.5% in FS, and 53.1% in SR, while more than half experienced slight degradation in BC. There is high heterogeneity and a great diversity among spatial distributions of ES synergies and trade-offs, which is largely dependent on ES pairs and spatial patterns of land use. Land use/land cover change was the dominant force driving changes in SR, BC and CS, while meteorological factors exhibited a greater effect on WS change than land use/land cover change. The paper examines the synergies between WC-SR, CS-BC and BC-FS on the city level, while WC-BC exhibits significant trade-offs, and no significant relationships for other ES pairs. It is imperative that ES trade-offs at different scales are incorporated to strengthen ecological protection and management policies in project implementation, maintaining ES within vital regions in China. More sophisticated methods and more ES indicators need to be incorporated to enhance the robustness and completeness of assessment.

Keywords: Determinants; Ecosystem services; Spatial pattern; Trade-offs; Yangtze River Economic Belt.