Evaluation of climate regulation service at prefecture-level city: A case study of Fuzhou City, China

Abstract

Ecosystem services are the bridge between ecosystem functions and human welfare. Climate regulation service (CRS) has an extremely important role in ecosystem services. It is important to conduct a comprehensive assessment based on the whole process of CRS occurrence for scientific assessment of ecosystem services. With Fuzhou City as a case, we carried out the assessment of CRS at the local and municipal scales, and analyzed the spatial and temporal variations of CRS at the administrative unit and land use and land cover scales. The results showed that the aggregated physical capacity of CRS in Fuzhou City was 4.01×1012 MJ (monetary value 613.944 billion yuan, GDP 561.808 billion yuan) and 4.66×1012 MJ (monetary value 714.002 billion yuan, GDP 785.681 billion yuan) in 2015 and 2018, respectively, and that the monetary value of CRS was roughly equivalent to the GDP of that year. The main land use/cover (LULC) type was woodland, cultivated land, and water area, which accounted for 57%, 15%, and 9% of Fuzhou's land area, respectively. Water area contributed the most to Fuzhou's CRS, with a contribution of over 60% in 2018, higher than woodland (12%), and cultivated land (13%). The CRS was lower in built-up areas and eastern farming areas. Between 2015 and 2018, the area of LULC change in Fuzhou was 1805.5 km2. The largest changes were cultivated land and wood land. The main land use transfer direction was between cultivated land and woodland, woodland and garden land, cultivated land and residential and industrial and mining land. The aggregated physical capacity of CRS changed by 6.74×1011 MJ, while the corresponding monetary value of 103.58 billion yuan. The CRS changes were concentrated in the central and western regions such as Minhou, Minqing, and Yongtai, and the western mountainous regions such as Luoyuan and Fuqing. The most drastic change of CRS was found in water area. The conversion of water areas produced extremely strong changes in CRS, much stronger than the effects of conversion of other LULC types.