Exploring the formulation of ecological management policies by quantifying interregional primary ecosystem service flows in Yangtze River Delta region, China (2023)

Under a background of unbalanced regional economic development and ecological environments, the accurate identification of ecological compensation (EC) areas and the determination of compensation standards have become research key and hotspots. Their aim is to improve the long-term mechanisms of interregional EC. In this study, ecosystem services value (ESV) in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region (BTH) in 2000, 2010 and 2019 are calculated using modelling and ecological economics methods. The region is divided into ecological output and input areas according to ecosystem services supply and demand. The breakpoint formula and field strength model are introduced to reveal the characteristics of ecosystem services flow (ESF) from output areas to input areas. By integrating a transfer correction coefficient system of natural, economic and social factors, an EC model based on ESF is constructed, and EC amounts for the BTH are calculated. The results are as follows: (1) The ESV of the BTH shows an increasing trend, with little change in spatial distribution characteristics. The high-value areas are distributed in the Taihang and Yanshan Mountains and Bashang Plateau in the northwest, while the low-value areas are concentrated in the Southeast Hebei Plain. (2) ESF mainly occurs in the western and northern regions of the BTH. Output areas are mainly distributed in the Taihang and Yanshan Mountains and Bashang Plateau, and their number is increasing. The flow radius, flow intensity and ESV transfer amounts also show increasing trends. (3) The ratio of EC paid by Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei is 1:0.2:2.56, the EC amounts are all provided to the Hebei Province, and the funds mainly flow to Chengde City, Zhangjiakou City and Baoding City. The proposed EC model based on ESF provides a basis and reference for the construction of an inter-regional EC mechanism in the BTH.

Accounting for the ecosystem service values (ESVs) and discussing the relationship between the ESVs and economic development can help achieve sustainable ecological development. Therefore, this paper evaluates the county-level ESVs of various land types in China, and depicts the distribution of ESVs in various urban agglomerations. In addition, the nonlinear relationship between ESVs and economic development is revealed. The main findings are as follows: (1) From 2000 to 2018, the ESVs in China decreased, and the decline rate of ESVs in urban agglomerations is much higher than that of China as a whole. (2) The decline rate of ESVs in core cities is much higher than in urban agglomerations, and the decline rate of ESVs is higher in areas close to core cities and lower in areas far from core cities. (3) The ecological Kuznets curve of China has a positive “U” shape, and the ecological Kuznets curve of urban agglomerations has an “N” shape; the ecological Kuznets curve of core cities has a positive “U” shape, while the ESVs of other cities decreases monotonically with the increase of the economic level.

Payment for ecosystem services (PES) is an important policy aiming to promote environmental protection. However, existing studies only focus on the historical PES and ignore their predictions, which leads to the mismatch and inefficient use in funds for supporting PES (PES funds). This paper takes the regions of Zhejiang-Jiangsu-Shanghai in China as the study area, and develops a systematic method integrating land-use change, CA-Markov model and ecosystem service value (ESV) model to predict the PES standards and optimizes PES funds allocation from 2025 to 2040. The results show that farmland and forest will be largely transformed into construction land. ESV will increase and its distribution will involve significant spatial differences caused by the increase in wetland, water, and forest, and the equivalent factor. The PES funds obtained by this region are obviously underestimated; Taking ecological gain as the basis for optimizing PES fund allocation, Zhejiang, Jiangsu and Shanghai obtained 274 million USD, 168 million USD and 150 million USD from 2025 to 2040, respectively. This study can provide a reference for governments of developing countries to manage these funds, improve their use efficiency and alleviate regional contradictions.

With the development of urbanization, ecological space is increasingly disturbed and invaded by human activities. From 2000 to 2020, the value of ecosystem services in China decreased from 28.05 to 27.77 trillion yuan. This paper combines the natural and social data of 370 administrative units in China from 2000 to 2020 with the GTWR model. Our results show that in most regions of China, the coefficient value of factor GDP or POP is significantly higher than that of other factors. The regions with higher natural factors coefficient value are concentrated in the northwest and southeast. In addition, this study found that the driving factors and ESV have geographical spillover effects. The above conclusions have important practical significance for planning policies according to local conditions.

Studying the whole process of ecosystem services (ES) realization by people (ecosystem services flow) is the key to ES management. However, varying concepts of relative ecosystem services flow (ESF) and different methods for measuring ESF have prevented its effective application in policy and management. In addition, there has been no systematic review of the concepts, methods and application of ESF. To address this research gap, we conducted a systematic review of ESF measurement, focusing on the main concepts, methods and applications. We used the key words ““ecosystem service*” AND (“flow*” OR “delivery*”)” in the core collection of the ISI Web of Science databases, with the aim of synthesizing the concepts, methods and applications of ESF. We propose future research directions to move the field of ESF toward a more accepted and consistent set of terminology and scientific practice. Eighty-two case studies were eventually selected for the review. We found that different understandings of the definition of ESF (actual use amount as flow, spatial connection as flow, flow process as flow and other flow) resulted in different measurement methods. Measuring the whole process of ESF may help us measure nature’s contribution to people, understand the relationship between supply and demand, which will facilitate the development of regional planning and policies (e.g. spatial conservation planning, infrastructure planning, interregional management), and in turn increase ESF. To effectively apply ESF in the future, first, we recommend combining existing flow definitions and redefining ESF as the whole ESF realization process with more focus on human needs. Second, ecological process-based dynamic models should be developed or improved to assess ESF by integrating the beneficiaries. Third, we should consider the impacts of both natural and human-derived capital on the delivery of ESF and ways to strengthen interregional flow management. Overall, this article contributes to a more comprehensive understanding of the definition, methods and application for measuring ESF, which in turn will inform ES policy implementation.

Ecological compensation in the Yellow River Basin aims to improve its ecological and environmental management capacity. Based on data on land-use changes in the Yellow River Basin from 2010 to 2020, this study used the equivalent factor method to assess the value of ecosystem services in the basin. This was measured at three spatial scales in the upper, middle, and lower reaches, encompassing; nine provinces and 72 cities. The priority and amount of ecological compensation were determined for the Yellow River Basin regions. Results show that (1) The total value of ecosystem services in the Yellow River Basin increased from 1798.317 billion yuan in 2010 to 1838.259 billion yuan in 2020. Grasslands had the highest total ecosystem service value in 2020, accounting for 46.11%. (2) The value of ecosystem services in the Yellow River Basin region is upstream>midstream>downstream. Qinghai Province has the highest value of ecosystem services among the nine provinces, and the level of economic development in each region is inversely correlated with the value of ecosystem services. (3) The ecosystem service value and the economic development level of the cities in the Yellow River Basin are positively and negatively correlated with the priority of ecological compensation, respectively. Among them, the cities in the upper reaches are the most urgent targets for national ecological compensation. (4) The total ecological compensation in the Yellow River Basin in 2020 was approximately 122.63 billion yuan. Further, the amount of vertical ecological compensation to be paid by the state was approximately 114.673 billion yuan, and the horizontal compensation to be borne between provinces was approximately 7.957 billion yuan. The findings of this study provide novel insights into improving ecological compensation in the Yellow River Basin regions.

Journal of Environmental Management, Volume 211, 2018, pp. 306-312

Eco-compensation is a type of institutional arrangement that uses economic measures to adjust the relationships among stakeholders in order to conserve and/or sustainably use ecosystem services. The externality of the value of ecosystem services is one of the theoretical bases for eco-compensation. Different types of ecosystem services are consumed by people from different regions. Some are consumed by people living where the services originate, while some are carried by rivers, wind, vehicles or other natural or manmade means to other areas. Thus, the flow and consumption of ecosystem services should be seen as the basis for establishing eco-compensation funds. This paper uses satellite images of the Zhang-Cheng area near Beijing in 2013 to discuss how to establish an eco-compensation fund for stakeholders in this area. Firstly, six important types of ecosystem services in the Zhang-Cheng area were identified based on ecological function zoning, and the value of these ecosystem services was calculated based on ecological pricing methods. Secondly, the field intensity model from physics was used to analyze where Zhang-Cheng area ecosystem services flowed and calculate how much of these services were used by other areas. Thirdly, based on this analysis and calculation, the paper proposes the rates that different stakeholders should invest in the eco-compensation fund, based on their consumption of eco-services.

Science of The Total Environment, Volume 798, 2021, Article 149330

Co-urbanized areas around large cities in developing countries face the problem of spatial disconnection between supply and demand areas of ecosystem services (ES). To explore the reflection of human needs in the nonadjacent surrounding natural spaces and identify the response of the existing natural space system to the ES demand in terms of total amount and spatial distribution, a new method for ES demand mapping in co-urbanized areas was proposed. Based on the theory of the ES delivery chain, urban built-up areas are identified as service benefiting areas (SBAs) and the sources where demands are generated, natural spaces are regarded as service provision areas (SPAs) and the sinks and destinations where demands are satisfied, and ES spatial flow is considered as the delivery mechanism and ecological process that promotes the demand flow from sources to sinks. An indicator cluster composed of four multidimensional indicators, including flow quantity, flow boundary, flow direction and allocation mode along the distance, was used to characterize the spatial flow and represent the four key links in the technical path of allocating ES demand from built-up areas to natural spaces with spatial flow to intuitively reflect the spatial characteristics of human social demands projected in them. We quantified and mapped the distribution of three ES demands in built-up areas and surrounding natural spaces. In the former, the high-demand spaces are concentrated in the areas with high population density or high aging degree; while in the latter, the high-demand spaces are mainly adjacent to the built-up areas or the large-scale natural spaces. By controlling the flow quantity, expanding the flow area, increasing the flow directions and improving the ES supply capacity of SPAs within a given distance, the high ES demands in the above spaces can be effectively regulated.

Science of The Total Environment, Volume 748, 2020, Article 141341

Nutrient regulation is an important ecosystem regulating service in watersheds. However, systematic investigations of the spatial associations between the potential, flow, and demand of the nutrient regulation service are still lacking. Therefore, we performed a case study comparing the total phosphorus (TP) retention in the Dianchi Lake (DL) watershed (human-dominated) with that in the Lower Reach of the Zi River (LRZR) watershed (nature-dominated). We used four indicators—TP retention potential, TP retention, TP load, and TP export—to represent the potential, flow, demand, and flow–demand budget of the TP retention service, respectively. We estimated the TP retention and export using the InVEST tool, mapped the four TP indicators and calculated their correlations, and estimated the contributions of different ecosystem types and terrain ranges to TP retention and export. We determined the following: (1) the incongruity between the spatial distribution of the TP retention potential and the other three TP indicators was smaller in the LRZR watershed than in the DL watershed; (2) the TP retention potentials generally increased—while the other three TP indicators decreased—with increases in the elevation gradient in the DL watershed and the slope gradients in both study areas; and (3) paddy fields exhibited the highest TP retention intensity and residential areas exhibited the highest TP export intensity among the major ecosystem types in both study areas. Moreover, the TP retention intensities of dryland crops and residential areas in the DL watershed were much higher than they were in the LRZR watershed. Our findings imply that the flow of the nutrient retention service is influenced more by the service demand than by the service potential and that it is influenced by both landscape composition and pattern. Because of the limitations and uncertainties in the modeling outputs, our results should be carefully used in other studies or in decision-making.

Ecosystem Services, Volume 50, 2021, Article 101306

To sustain water-dependent economic and socio-ecological systems, natural capital and its interactions with other types of capital is gaining attention, but a clear understanding of how to manage natural capital sustainably and how to make decisions relevant to water-related ecosystem services is yet to be achieved. In this study, we extended the framing of water-related ecosystem service flows by integrating water quantity and quality; capturing the flows of ecosystem services (i.e., green phase) and degraded ecosystem services (i.e., red phase); and connecting natural capital, built/human capital (i.e., water supply and wastewater treatment), and beneficiaries. We applied this framework to the Jiulong River watershed in China, using hydrological models to model water quantity and quality based on historical observations and experimental data. Our results showed that, during the green phase, the interactions of natural capital and built/human capital significantly improved water quality in downstream areas with higher flows. During the red phase, built/human capital reduced nitrogen by~10% while natural capital further reduced it by over one half, which improved the water quality of degraded ecosystem services. Our extended water-related ecosystem services framework can provide explicit information for integrated basin management via investment in natural and built capital, eco-compensation schemes, and pollutant management.

Applied Geography, Volume 133, 2021, Article 102491

A greater understanding of the complex relationships between ecosystem service (ES) supply and demand is needed to ensure a continuous and sustainable flow of ES in socioecological systems. While considerable progress has been made in ES flow mapping, further research is required to integrate beneficiaries' perspectives into these analyses. In this study, we obtained data from stakeholders to analyze the characteristics and distribution of water ES (WES) flows from service production units to beneficiaries and vice versa in order to better understand the mechanisms of management and mobilization along the WES cascade. The study area is the Muga river basin located in northeast Catalonia, Spain. We used a combined methodology of participatory mapping in which stakeholders from the basin were asked to identify service production and benefiting units and semi-structured interviews to assess their perspectives. We found that WES flow patterns and number of beneficiaries varied according to WES category and detected spatial mismatches between supply and demand. A better understanding of ES flow patterns and spatial distribution of beneficiaries can help identify potential sources of conflict. It can also help understand the dynamics and power relationships between groups of stakeholders involved in the coproduction of ES.

Ecosystem Services, Volume 28, Part A, 2017, pp. 95-104

Urban agglomerations are both a new combination of regional units in economic and social development and regions with a series of highly concentrated ecological, economic, and social problems. Studies with a single urban ecosystem as the research object cannot fundamentally solve regional ecological problems. Therefore, urban agglomerations have provided a new perspective for studying regional ecosystems and their services. The importance and usage of cultural ecosystem services increase with their supply and demand, which is the key to linking the ecosystem with human well-being. The recognition and evaluation of cultural ecosystem services in urban agglomerations have become an important element that affects coordinated protection and decision making in regional ecosystem management. This paper proposes a theoretical framework for the study of the cultural ecosystem service flows and analyzes the impacts of the ecosystem structure, stakeholders, and management policies on the supply of and demand for cultural ecosystem services in urban agglomerations. Through a discussion of the framework, this paper proposes that using the urban agglomerations ecosystem as a research object is beneficial for multi-scale and cross-scale research on quantifying cultural ecosystem services. Service flows can better reveal the dynamic spatio-temporal characteristics of beneficiaries in urban agglomerations, and combined with the research concerning human well-being, the framework can enhance the application of research on cultural ecosystem services in decision making for regional coordinated development.