Impacts of land management on ecosystem service delivery in the Baiyangdian river basin

Abstract

As the largest freshwater lake in northern China, Lake Baiyangdian provides a diversity of ecosystem services: it guarantees water flow to a number of beneficiaries and is an important component of sustainable regional development. However, the flows of sustainable ecosystem services from Lake Baiyangdian mainly depend on upstream hydrological and nutrient retention functions. For sustainable land management, it is important to explore the implications of upstream land-use changes by humans on the ecosystem services supplied by Lake Baiyangdian. In this study, ecological assets and hydrological time series were analysed, and the InVEST model was used to investigate the implications of land management on the delivery of ecosystem services. The results showed that significant changes in ecological assets occurred in the Baiyangdian river basin during the period 1980–2007, characterised particularly by an increase in forested area and a decline in wetland area. A significant decline in the ecological status of the Baiyangdian river basin, expressed as an abrupt change in stream flow time series 1970–2011, was also noted. Water yield and surface run-off functions were mainly influenced by precipitation, but changes in land-cover patterns exacerbate the impacts of these two factors. Nutrient retention was influenced more by altered land cover than by precipitation. Due to data gaps, it was not possible to link upstream ecosystem functions to the ecosystem services contributed by Lake Baiyangdian. It will be necessary to establish a long-term ecological monitoring programme in order to gather the data needed to gain a deeper understanding of the interconnections between ecosystem function and services. The ultimate aim of such a programme must be to incorporate ecosystem services into ecosystem management and policy-making.