Spatial spillover effects of forest ecological security on ecological well-being performance in China

Abstract

Improving ecological well-being performance (EWP) is important for the construction of ecological civilization and sustainable development. The forest ecosystem provides multidimensional ecological well-being for humans, and forest ecological security (FES) has an important impact on the ability of human beings to obtain well-being from the ecosystem, providing multiple guarantees for EWP enhancement. Based on the panel data from 2004 to 2018, we estimate the EWP and FES index of 30 Chinese provinces using stochastic frontier model and TOPSIS, respectively. The spatial econometric model is also used to analyze the impact and spatial spillover effects of FES on EWP. The results show that (1) the level of overall EWP in China from 2004 to 2018 is high, but still not fully effective in converting natural resource inputs into well-being levels, showing a trend of fluctuating decline. Meanwhile, the spatial variation is obvious, where provinces with low EWP are mainly concentrated in the less developed western regions. (2) The FES index overall performance stands at the lower level, but maintaining a stable growth trend. Similarly, there are spatial variations in the distribution of FES, and declined in the order of East, Central, Northeast, and West China, which is basically consistent with the socioeconomic development status. (3) EWP and FES are both significantly correlated in spatial dependence, and the improvement of FES not only promotes EWP in the local, but also positively affects the neighbors through spatial spillover effects, with the indirect effects in the decomposition effects being much larger than the direct effects. In the context of resource scarcity and environmental constraints, the findings of this paper provide empirical evidence for policy formulation to enhance EWP, and the security status of forest ecosystems is a key consideration.