Simulating the Impact of Future Climate Change and Ecological Restoration on Trade-Offs and Synergies of Ecosystem Services in Two Ecological Shelters and Three Belts in China

Abstract

Development of suitable ecological protection and restoration policies for sustainable management needs to assess the potential impacts of future land use and climate change on ecosystem services. The two ecological shelters and three belts (TSTB) are significant for improving ecosystem services and ensuring China’s and global ecological security. In this study, we simulated land use in 2050 and estimated the spatial distribution pattern of net primary productivity (NPP), water yield, and soil conservation from 2010 to 2050 under future climate change. The results showed that water yield, NPP, and soil conservation exhibited a spatial pattern of decreasing from southeast to northwest, while in terms of the temporal pattern, water yield and NPP increased, but soil conservation decreased. Water yield was mainly influenced by precipitation, NPP was affected by temperature and implementation of ecological restoration, and soil conservation was controlled by precipitation and slope. There was a strong spatial heterogeneity between trade-offs and synergies. In terms of the temporal, with the combination of climate change and ecological restoration, there was a synergistic relationship between water yield and NPP. However, the relationships between water yield and soil conservation, and between NPP and soil conservation were characterized by trade-offs. In the process of ecological construction, it is necessary to consider the differences between overall and local trade-offs and synergies, as well as formulate sustainable ecological management policies according to local conditions. Understanding the response of ecosystem services to future climate change and land use policies can help address the challenges posed by climate change and achieve sustainable management of natural resources.

Spatiotemporal Variation in Ecosystem Services and Their Drivers among Different Landscape Heterogeneity Units and Terrain Gradients in the Southern Hill and Mountain Belt, China

“…The relationship between precipitation and NPP was unstable, with both positive and negative correlations, indicating that rainfall had an inconsistent influence on NPP. The significant positive correlation between soil conservation and slope highlighted the effect of slope on soil conservation in mountainous areas [28]. In addition, the NDVI and precipitation were high in areas with high soil conservation, which was consistent with previous studies [64].…”

“…Most previous studies have focused on the spatial distribution, mapping, and relationships of ESs at a single point in time [23,24]. Recently, an increasing number of researchers have investigated the complex relationships among ESs and how their relationships might change over longer timespans [25][26][27][28][29] by analyzing land cover/land use (LULC) changes [30][31][32], performing scenario analysis [33,34] or assessing ES bundle changes [35,36]. The overall research on ESs is in-depth and specific, with a variety of perspectives.…”

Identifying Ecological Security Patterns Based on Ecosystem Services Is a Significative Practice for Sustainable Development in Southwest China

“…Aiming to solve problems of ecological security, China governments have carried out a series of projects and plans such as ecological regionalization, ecological function zoning, ecological protection red line projects, and optimization of protected areas (Liu and Chang, 2015;Liu, 2016;He et al, 2018;Gao et al, 2020;Liu et al, 2021). Researching ESs-based ESPs is an effective path to maintain and improve the ecological security of Southwest China which plays an essential role in the ESS (Wang et al, 2020). ESS construction is a national plan to maintain ecological security function and improve ecological environment in China (Sun et al, 2012;Wang et al, 2017).…”

“…Effective construction and maintenance of the ESs-based ESPs can contribute to the integrity of ecosystem structure and function, biodiversity conservation, and human wellbeing improvement (Ye et al, 2018). The ESs-based ESPs can benefit ecosystems to sustain human existence and development, can also promote sustainable development, and eventually improve levels of ecological security (Liu, 2016;Ye et al, 2018;Wang et al, 2020). The ESs-based ESPs can be seen as a trade-off and synergy between ecological conservation and socio-economic development (Cochran et al, 2020;Deng et al, 2021).…”

Quantifying synergistic effects of multi-temporal ecosystem service bundles for degraded ecosystem restoration: a case study in Hubei Province, China

“…China is one of the countries with the most fragile ecological environment in the world [37]. The rapid urbanization and climate change in the past few decades have caused a series of problems, such as natural ecosystem degradation, desertification, and soil erosion, which have seriously affected China's ecological security [38,39].…”