Abstract
Driven by rapid urbanization, land use patterns have undergone dramatic changes, which have in turn influenced ecosystem services (ESs). The government has implemented ecological compensation and conservation actions to mitigate this negative impact, especially in metropolises. However, whether these measures will have the desired effect remains unclear. Therefore, understanding the spatio-temporal characteristics of ESs and their driving factors are crucial for regional development. In this study, we quantified carbon storage, water yield and soil conservation services based on land use maps. A Geographical Detector (GD) was used to analyze the driving mechanisms of ES changes in Beijing from 1985 to 2020. The results showed that (1) the obvious landscape pattern changes are urbanization, afforestation and cultivated land degradation in Beijing, (2) the three services showed an increasing trend overall, but the changes were different in each period, (3) in general, land use change is the main factor affecting ESs, and the urbanization and afforestation contributed the most. These results suggest that in highly urbanized metropolises, humans can still balance the demands of regional development and ESs reasonable planning. This study highlights the importance of afforestation for ESs, the necessity of harmonizing environmental concerns and human activities, and the need to conduct ecological management in Beijing to protect the ecological environment and coordinate regional development.
Highlights
Ecosystem services (ESs) are the benefits and goods that people obtain from ecosystems [1], and the ESs concept incorporates the well-being provided by an ecosystem into sustainable management policies [2,3,4]
This study focused on Beijing, which is one of the most developed urban areas in China, to analyze the spatio-temporal changes in carbon storage, water yield and soil conservation services over the past 35 years
The results showed that the changes of driving factors except LULC
Summary
Ecosystem services (ESs) are the benefits and goods that people obtain from ecosystems [1], and the ESs concept incorporates the well-being provided by an ecosystem into sustainable management policies [2,3,4]. As an important link between humans and ecosystems, ESs are critical to the sustainable development of human society and the stability of ecosystems [5,6]. The pressures of urbanization and global change mean that the ESs provided by ecosystems are facing unprecedented threats, and at least 15 types of global ESs are in a state of degradation [7,8]. Such deterioration damages the restorative capacity of ecosystems and produces irreversible effects, resulting in adverse outcomes for both human development and the ecological environment [9,10,11]. Many studies have shown that global warming intensifies the ecological impact of climate change and poses a nonnegligible
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