Abstract
The establishment of the Sanjiangyuan National Park (SNP) favours implementation of strictest ecological protection on the Tibetan Plateau, thus firmly ensuring national ecological security. To understand ecological background in the SNP, spatial and temporal variations of ecosystem, and its services during the period 2000–2015 and significance identification were analysed by using the methods of remote sensing, GIS and model simulation. The results showed that: (1) Area with extremely important ecosystem services accounted for approximately 51.4% of the SNP’s total area, of which extreme importance water regulation, soil conservation and sand fixation regions contributed 15.3%, 13.7% and 22.4%, respectively. (2) The SNP had formed a spatial pattern of ecosystem services with water regulation as core in the eastern part, soil conservation as core in the central part and sand fixation as core in the western part. (3) For the period 2000–2015, water regulation service generally improved in the SNP. Soil conservation service also improved overall; and sand fixation service exhibited a decreasing trend due to reduction in wind speed and vegetation coverage. (4) Climate warming and humidification, combined with the implementation of ecological protection project in the SNP were the primary reasons for ecosystem services improvement. However, grassland degradation had not yet been fundamentally suppressed, and vegetation coverage was still declining in regional areas. For strict protection and sustainable use of the SNP and its natural resources, overall planning and scientific layout should be paid more attention, and classification and subarea protection should be implemented based on natural ecosystem laws.
Highlights
Ecosystem services are the benefits that human beings obtain from the ecosystem[1], which are primarily affected by human activity, especially changes in land use and landscape patterns[2,3]
In 2015, the Sanjiangyuan National Park (SNP) was dominated by grassland, desert, water body and wetland ecosystems with areas of 6.90 × 104 km2, 4.34 × 104 km[2], and 1.04 × 104 km[2], respectively, which accounted for 56.2%, 35.2%, and 8.4% of the national park’s total area (Fig. 2)
The Huanghe River Source Park (HRSP) was dominated by grassland ecosystem, which accounted for approximately 72.5% of its area, followed by desert ecosystem, constituting approximately 17.8%
Summary
Ecosystem services are the benefits that human beings obtain from the ecosystem[1], which are primarily affected by human activity, especially changes in land use and landscape patterns[2,3]. Quantitative analysis of spatial and temporal variation in ecosystem patterns and ecosystem services over a certain time period before the establishment of a national park is extremely important for strengthening natural resource management, guiding overall planning and partition control, and exploring ecological compensation mechanisms. Previous studies have primarily focused on the Sanjiangyuan region or a single basin of the Yangtze River or Huanghe River, which does not present an accurate reflection of the ecological background of the SNP over the past several years. We were aiming at figure out the ecological status of the SNP and identify the significance of ecosystem services, which may provide a scientific basis for dividing management zones and performing differentiated protection, as well as developing a top-level design of China’s national parks system
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