Temporal Changes in Multiple Ecosystem Services and Their Bundles Responding to Urbanization and Ecological Restoration in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei Metropolitan Area

Abstract

By 2050, 70% of the human population is likely to be living in cities, making urbanization an increasing global trend. Detecting changes in ecosystem services (ES) and their bundles in response to urbanization is critical for evaluating land-use policies. We examined changes in the provision of grains, vegetables, fruits, carbon sequestration, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, and water retention from 2000 to 2010 in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei metropolitan area, China; then, using a k-means cluster analysis, we classified 202 counties of this area into groups (bundles) based on their similar sets of ES. We found that (1) urban area, forestland, and grassland increased by 22%, 3.6%, and 1.7%, respectively, while cropland decreased by 4.6%; (2) the provision of grains, vegetables, and fruits increased by 24–90%, despite an overall loss in cropland; carbon storage and sand retention increased by 40% and 7%, respectively, while soil and water retention increased slightly by approx. 1% each; (3) 72 counties changed their ES bundles; and the “agriculture bundle” dominated the landscape in 2000 while it decreased by 50% in 2010 and was mainly transformed to “sub-developed urban bundle”, indicating loss of cropland during that decade. The transformation of ES bundles can be used to understand the effects of urbanization. The study indicated that improved technologies and ecological restoration in rural areas can help sustain multiple ES in our rapidly urbanizing world.

Urbanization-Driven Changes in Land-Climate Dynamics: A Case Study of Haihe River Basin, China

“…As previous studies show, grassland in the plain area had partially been transferred for urban infrastructure and architecture under the pressure of regional population growth [50] (pathway 3 ). For the other part of grassland/shrub in the high-altitude mountainous areas, a small proportion was transformed to forest following natural succession [19] thanks to the more favorable regional climate, e.g., increasing air temperature and atmospheric CO 2 concentration [51].…”

“…The heat-hydro environment in turn influences the societal preference in living and producing as the regional climatic effect on human residence and movement. Thus, urbanization-driven LUCC has the regulating function by altering regional climate, which can be quantified and monetarized under the framework of ecosystem services for optimizing the land ecological and economic benefits in land planning and management [14,18,19].…”

The impacts of climate change on bank performance: What’s the mediating role of natural disasters?

“…Barrimah et al ( 2012 ) also considered that climate change leads to traffic accidents, which can threaten the health of humans. Forest land is able to help inhibit sandstorms, strong winds, and other inclement weather (Yang et al 2019 ). Therefore, forest land affects man-made disasters directly.…”

Integrating Ecosystem Services Into Assessments of Sustainable Development Goals: A Case Study of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, China

“…The proportion of urban population has grown from 39% to 69%, the area of construction land has grown 57%, and GDP has grown 8-fold between 2000 and 2020 (National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2001; National Bureau of Statistics of China, 2021). However, environmental problems such as sandstorms, air pollution, water pollution, and soil erosion have also placed considerable pressure on the BTH (Yang et al, 2019b). Eco-environment protection has been strengthened since 2010.…”