Systematically addressing the heterogeneity in the response of ecosystem services to agricultural modernization, industrialization and urbanization in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from 2000 to 2018

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ESS) change and its response to human activities is critical for enhancing ecosystem management and regional sustainability. This study constructs a theoretical framework of coupled ESS and three modernization (agricultural modernization (AM), industrialization and urbanization) systems, depicts the dynamic changes of ESS and three modernizations in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP) from 2000 to 2018, and further analyses the heterogeneity in the response of multiple ESS to different human activities using the Pearson correlation method and bivariate spatial autocorrelation model. (1) AM showed a significant negative impact on ESS and other single ESS except for food production and waste treatment services, and there was also an increasingly significant negative correlation between them in space, indicating that AM did not coordinate the local ecological protection and exerted the strongest destruction and an expanding scope of spatially negative effects on ESS. (2) Industrialization was negatively correlated with ESS as well as all of their associated single ESS to a different extent and was only significantly correlated with regulation services, while it interacted spatially with ESS, changing from presenting a weak negative correlation to presenting a weak positive correlation during 2000–2018, which reveals that industrialization had relatively less pressure on ESS and developed in a more eco-friendly mode. (3) Urbanization exerted a weak negative influence on ESS and most single ESS, whereas urbanization was positively correlated with waste treatment, landscape culture provision and biodiversity maintenance services in 2018, and it showed a significant positive impact of a growing tendency to effect ESS in space, which reveals that urbanization was conducive to reducing the overall disturbance of human activities on ESS. (4) The heterogeneity characteristics of the local spatial correlation patterns between the three modernization levels and ESS as well as their changes during 2000–2018 were investigated and presented obvious differences, and the low-high/high-low areas of the levels and changes for these two constructs should be given enough attention and take corresponding adaptive management measures. This study indicates that there are remarkable heterogeneous effects of different intensities and types of human activities on ESS, which should be understood systematically to coordinate the development pathways and patterns of three modernizations and the restoration and sustainable utilization of ecosystems.