Abstract
Ecosystem services are comprehensive and quantitative indicators for describing ecosystem–human interactions. China has experienced rapid urbanization in the past 30 years, which has created a significant impact on regional ecosystem services. However, whether the impact is linear is not clear as yet. In this study, the Jiangsu province, a main body of the Chinese Yangtze River Delta city cluster, was chosen as a case study. Multi-source remotely-sensed geospatial data, including meteorological, land use, vegetation, and socio-economic data, were collected to estimate the total amount of ecosystem services (TESV) and urbanization levels. Subsequently, the relationships between TESV and urbanization indices (i.e., gross domestic product (GDP) per unit area, GPUA; population per unit area, PPUA; and built-up land proportion, BULP) were determined using the Pearson correlation analysis and piecewise linear regression. The primary findings of this study were as follows: (1) There was a distinct spatial pattern in TESV, which gradually increased from west to east with high-value areas located in eastern coastal areas of Jiangsu. Among different land use types, cropland and woodland contributed the most to TESV; (2) The three urbanization indices had spatial patterns, indicating higher urbanization in southern Jiangsu than in central or northern Jiangsu; and (3) Once GPUA and PPUA exceeded threshold values of 3719.55 × 104 yuan/km2 and 744.37 person/km2, respectively, TESV sharply decreased with an increase in these indices. However, the BULP showed a linear and significantly negative relationship with TESV at all values, which indicated that the impacts of economic and population growth on TESV lagged behind that of built-up land expansion. These findings provide a potentially significant reference for decision-makers to rationally enhance regional ecosystem services during rapid urbanization processes.
Highlights
It is well known that China has been undergoing a significant and complex urbanization process for the past 30 years [1,2]
Our results revealed that three urbanization indices, i.e., economic urbanization, population urbanization, and land urbanization, had significantly negative relationships with total amount of ecosystem services (TESV) in Jiangsu (Table 5), which is consistent with the results of other previous work [4,7,21,28]
Analysis of TESV in this study showed a clear spatial pattern in the whole region, gradually increasing from west to east with high-value areas located in the eastern coastal areas of Jiangsu
Summary
It is well known that China has been undergoing a significant and complex urbanization process for the past 30 years [1,2]. Costanza et al [11,12] evaluated global economic values of ecosystem services using equivalence factors per unit area, and indicated that the loss of ecosystem services reached over $US 4.3 trillion/year due to massive land use changes. Considering that this value assessment did not account for ecological processes and functions, some scholars evaluated physical quantities of ecosystem services by linking remotely-sensed data to process-based models, such as carbon sequestration, soil retention, and water retention [13]. Because ecosystem services have the ability to reflect ecosystem status and change, they are usually considered one of the most comprehensive and quantifiable indicators in sustainable development research [15]
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