Evaluating Trade-Off and Synergies of Ecosystem Services Values of a Representative Resources-Based Urban Ecosystem: A Coupled Modeling Framework Applied to Panzhihua City, China

Abstract

Following significant urban expansion, the ecological problems of resource-based cities are gradually exposed. It is of great significance to study the ecosystem services of resource-based cities to achieve their sustainable development goals and to alleviate the conflicts between environmental protection and the utilization of the surrounding resources. However, in the current research on resource-based cities, few scholars have combined multiple minerals and multiple ecosystem services to explore the impact of mineral resources on the ecosystem. In this study, based on the historical data spanning from 2002 to 2018, we used the CA–Markov model to project the land use of Panzhihua City to 2030. Based on future land use projection, we quantified four ecosystem services (ESs) variables, including water yield, carbon storage, habitat quality, and soil conservation, using the InVEST model from the perspective of land use evolution in Panzhihua City. In addition, we explored the trade-offs and synergies of different ecosystem services and the correlations between different mineral species and ecosystem services using Spearman’s correlation coefficient. Results showed the following: (1) During 2002–2018, water yield service, habitat quality service, and carbon storage service of Panzhihua City decreased year by year, and soil conservation service showed significant fluctuations; most of the low ESs areas were distributed in the central region of Panzhihua. On the contrary, most high ESs areas were located in the forest region. (2) The trade-offs and synergistic relationships among different ecosystem services showed significant spatial variations. There were synergistic relationships among ESs and weak trade-offs between water yield services, soil conservation, and habitat quality services. There was also significant spatial variability in the trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services, with water production services showing “east trade-offs and west synergies” with soil conservation and habitat quality services, and most of the rest showing trade-offs in urban areas. (3) ESs in mining areas showed trade-offs in general, mainly between water production services and carbon storage services, with clay as the major negative factor of mineral species, and iron ore mines that have undergone ecological protection construction showed the lowest negative impact on ecology.