Spatial-temporal Evolution of ESV in the Yellow River Basin and Its Response to Land Use Change

Abstract

Evaluating the value of ecosystem services and clarifying their temporal and spatial characteristics can effectively assist regions in formulating targeted and localized sustainable ecological management strategies. This study takes the Yellow River Basin (YRB）in China as the research area, analyzes the ecosystem service value (ESV) and its spatial-temporal variation characteristics in this region, using the equivalent factor method and geospatial exploration method, introduces the elasticity coefficient, and explores the response of ESV change to land use change, based on the land use cover data from 1990 to 2020. The results show that from 1990 to 2020, the ESV of the YRB showed an overall increasing trend, mainly because the ecological construction project increased the forest land and grassland in the region, thus the ecosystem service function was improved. In the past 28 years, the spatial characteristics of ESV in the YRB are relatively stable. The high-value areas are mainly distributed in the upper Yellow River, while the low-value areas are mainly distributed in the lower Yellow River, but the cold spots and hot spots are reduced. The ESV barycenter coordinates show the direction of the transfer trajectory, which is first to the southwest, then to the northeast, and then to the southwest. From 2000 to 2010, the land use change in the YRB had a greater impact on ESV. Since 2010, the disturbance of ecosystem services by land use change has decreased. The elastic index of the upstream region and the Loess Plateau region is significantly higher than that of other regions, and the impact of land use change on ecosystem services is more obvious, which is mainly because the large-scale implementation of ecological construction projects has significantly improved the ecological function of the region. Our results is conducive to promoting the coordination of sustainable development and ecological protection in YRB, which is based on a comprehensive spatial-temporal assessment of ESV.