Abstract
Intensifying urbanization and rapid population growth in Fujian Province, China, has caused pollution of air and water resources; this has adversely impacted ecosystems and human health. China has recently begun pursuing a massive infrastructure and economic development strategy called the Belt and Road Initiative, which could potentially cause further environmental damage. Evaluations of ecosystem health are therefore a first step towards identifying the potential impacts from the development and planning sustainable development strategies in the Golden Triangle of Southern Fujian. To this end, our study analyzed landscape patterns and evaluated ecosystem health in this region. We used an index system method to develop a pressure–state–response (PSR) model for assessing the region’s ecosystem health. We found that: (1) the landscape type with the greatest area in the study region is cultivated land and there were no areas that were undisturbed by human activity; (2) the overall ecological health of the region is good, but there is distinct variation across the region. This study incorporates the landscape pattern into an evaluation of ecosystem health. Using counties as evaluation units, we provide a general evaluation index for this scale. The methods reported here can be used in complex ecological environments to inform sustainable management decisions.
Highlights
The Golden Triangle of Southern Fujian Province, which includes the cities of Xiamen, Zhangzhou, and Quanzhou in China, is a coastal ecosystem where urbanization has facilitated increased productivity and economic development [1]
In order to determine the influence of different factors operating in different ecosystems, it is necessary to identify the main factors contributing to the regional ecosystem health [42]
Using a system that ranks ecosystems based on their deviation from a normal, healthy condition, we identified the main factors controlling ecological health (Equation (7))
Summary
The Golden Triangle of Southern Fujian Province, which includes the cities of Xiamen, Zhangzhou, and Quanzhou in China, is a coastal ecosystem where urbanization has facilitated increased productivity and economic development [1]. The process of urbanization has caused severe air pollution, soil erosion, ecosystem degradation, and biodiversity loss [2]. Pollution and the degradation of ecosystems threaten the region’s economic and social development [3,4]. In the face of a rapidly deteriorating ecological environment, it is important to evaluate whether these changes will harm human beings or cause environmental or economic crises [5], and to determine how to manage ecosystems. A rational and effective approach to evaluating the health of regional ecosystems can provide practical guidance for designing policies that achieve sustainable development [6]. As ecological threats continue to emerge, research on conducting ecosystem health assessments has gradually matured, leading to the development of different theories of ecosystem health [7]
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