Research on the coordinated development of ecosystem services and well-being in agricultural and pastoral areas

Hai-Jiang Yang; Xiao-Hua Gou; Ding-Cai Yin; Miao-Miao Du; Lan-Ya Liu; Kai Wang

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114300

Research on the coordinated development of ecosystem services and well-being in agricultural and pastoral areas

J Environ Manage. 2022 Feb 15:304:114300. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114300. Epub 2021 Dec 27.

Authors

Hai-Jiang Yang¹, Xiao-Hua Gou², Ding-Cai Yin³, Miao-Miao Du³, Lan-Ya Liu³, Kai Wang³

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems with the Ministry of Education (MOE), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou 730333, China. Electronic address: yanghj19@lzu.edu.cn.
² Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems with the Ministry of Education (MOE), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou 730333, China. Electronic address: xhgou@lzu.edu.cn.
³ Key Laboratory of Western China's Environmental Systems with the Ministry of Education (MOE), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, China; Gansu Liancheng Forest Ecosystem Field Observation and Research Station, Lanzhou 730333, China.

PMID: 35021590
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2021.114300

Abstract

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) has been widely accepted as a policy tool for promoting ecological and social progress. However, PES development and implementation in traditional agricultural and pastoral areas are often more challenging than in other areas. The contradiction between ecological protection and people's livelihood development in traditional agricultural and pastoral areas is related to developing country's sustainable development strategy. Based on this, we evaluate the PES (ERCCP: the Ecological Relocation and Capital Compensation Program) program in Tianzhu County, as a case study to investigated the impact of ERCCP on the local natural and social ecosystems on a 20-year scale. The results of indicated that ERCCP has achieved "win-win" gains of restoring environment and promoting socioeconomic development: in the 10 years since ERCCP was implemented, the area of forest land and grassland increased significantly, increasing by 1135.6 ha and 919.62 ha, respectively. 57.5% of farmland was converted to grassland and 30.8% to forest, respectively. In addition, 92.2% and 7.5% of bare land were replaced by grassland and forest, respectively, indicating a gradual recovery of green land during this period. We also analyzed the effects of ERCCP on social systems, and found that the change of agro-pastoralists' attitude towards ERCCP promoted the transfer of labor force from the primary industry to the tertiary industry, accelerated the development of urbanization, and made the poor population completely out of poverty by 2020. In addition, we predict that the income level of households, the PES return on investment of local governments, and the value of regional ecosystem services will increase significantly after 2025. In this context, We establish a theoretical model to explain the win-win plan for the coordinated development of ecosystem services and regional well-being to explore the sustainability of PES and provided a typical case for the similar research area in the world, especially in the areas with the ecological fragility and poverty problems.

Keywords: Ecosystem services; Payment for ecosystem service (PES); Regional well being; Traditional agricultural and pastoral areas.

MeSH terms

Agriculture
China
Conservation of Natural Resources*
Ecosystem*
Farms
Forests
Humans