Integrating territorial pattern and socioeconomic development into ecosystem service value assessment

Abstract

To clarify the intrinsic linkages and mechanisms between territorial pattern changes and ecosystem service value (ESV) changes in coastal areas, this study tried to integrate territorial pattern and socio-economic development into ESV assessment. Taking the Beibu Gulf area as a case study, we estimated and analyzed the ESV changes using the equivalent factor method. And we combined relative importance analysis and pathway analysis to elucidate the contributions of different drivers to ESV changes, establishing the link between territorial pattern changes and ESV changes. The results indicated that increased ESV during 2000–2020 were mainly located in the areas where environmental policies were implemented, while the largest ESV decreases were concentrated in the areas with urban expansion. ESV changes are closely related to territorial pattern changes. Population factors are the most important drivers of ESV changes, likely as a result of the rapidly growing population placing more pressure on land use, and causing multiple land changes that affect ESV. Moreover, the population dynamic factor, agriculture production factor, tourism output factor and tourism equipment factor all contributed to increasing the ESV of regional ecosystems, while the population size factor, population structure factor and economic production factor reduced the ESV to some extent. In conclusion, economic development, population growth and ecological engineering implementation were the key factors influencing ESV changes by changing the territorial pattern. Therefore, appropriate land use policies could balance ecological protection and economic development to maximize human benefits acquired from ecosystems. Moreover, we proposed ecosystem management and landscape planning for typical land use types (i.e., forestland, farmland, orchards and water bodies) in the Beibu Gulf to improve the ESV and provide a reference for coastal areas.