Equilibrium Relationship between Ecosystem Service Supply and Consumption Driven by Economic Development and Ecological Restoration

Xianghua Zhang,Lingbo Dong,Yanli Xu,Zhenhua Qiao,Yingli Huang,Huiyan Qin

doi:10.3390/su13031486

Abstract

Economic development and ecological restoration guided by policies has had a profound impact on the relationship between ecosystem service supply and consumption in the past few decades. Exploring the relationship in specific study areas is necessary to support regional planning for sustainability. In this study, we analyzed the equilibrium relationship between ecosystem service supply and consumption driven by economic development and ecological restoration from 1995 to 2018 in Northeast China. We quantified the supply and consumption of three critical ecosystem services, food production, water yield and atmospheric regulation, and identified the main areas for supply and consumption of ecosystem services. We measured the quantity and spatial equilibrium relationship between ecosystem service supply and consumption driven by economic development and ecological restoration at economic megaregion scale. We found the new industrial structure shaped by regional economic development policies formed the new ecosystem service consumer demand. The development of agricultural industry not only resulted in the increase of water consumption, but also the scope of water consumption was expanded in Northeast China. The development of tertiary industry causes the change of atmospheric regulation consumption in urban agglomeration. What’s more, economic development exacerbated imbalances in the supply and consumption of ecosystem services. The unbalanced areas where food supply was less than consumption were in the clusters of Harbin, Changchun, Shenyang, and coastal cities. Since food products can circulate freely through the market, this imbalance will not fundamentally affect regional food security, but will improve the level of agricultural industrialization and scale. The implementation of the grain economic policy caused the rapid expansion of unbalanced areas where water supply was less than consumption. The incredible space mismatch between the supply and consumption of ecosystem services still exists for a long time. However, the implementation of the ecological restoration didn’t effectively solve the problem of insatiable ecosystem service consumption. The ecosystem service consumption brought by economic development need to be given the utmost attention when formulating ecological restoration policies and economic development policies. The results can provide insights for enhancing economic sustainability in northeast china, as well other economic megaregion with similar characteristics throughout the world.

Highlights

Ecosystems are natural resources that contribute to societal wellbeing in multiple ways [1]
In 1995, the high food supply areas were mainly distributed in Jilin and Liaohe Plain, while the food supply capacity per unit area was slightly weaker in Heilongjiang and Inner Mongolia
Our work presented an interdisciplinary framework by quantifying the spatial equilibrium relationship between the supply and consumption of ecosystem services to optimize ecosystem management, and used the framework to conduct a study on the relationship between the supply and consumption of ecosystem services driven by economic development and ecological restoration in Northeast China, which contributed to the formulation of economic development policies and ecological restoration policies

Summary

Introduction

Ecosystems are natural resources that contribute to societal wellbeing in multiple ways [1]. The past few decades have witnessed the implementation of China’s regional economic development policy, with the GDP increasing from US$97.988 billion in 1990. Sustainability 2021, 13, 1486 to US$888.74 billion in 2018 in Northeast China [2]. China has successively implemented regional economic development strategies such as “The rise of the eastern coast”, “The development of the western region in China”, “The strategy of revitalizing the old industrial base in Northeast China” and “The rise of Central China”. During the process of regional economic development, forest, grassland, wetland and other ecosystems have been converted into human-dominated ecosystems at an unprecedented scale and pace [3]. Since the 1990s, China has successively implemented ecological restoration such as the first and second phases of “The Natural Forest Conservation Program (NFCP)”, “3-North Shelter

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Discussion

Conclusion