Temporal variation and spatial scale dependency of the trade-offs and synergies among multiple ecosystem services in the Taihu Lake Basin of China

Abstract

Grasping the temporal-spatial characteristics of interactions and spatial scales of multiple ecosystem services is the foundation for sustainable ecosystem management. Eight ecosystem services, including crop production, freshwater supply, aquatic production, net primary production, soil conservation, water retention, flood regulation, and forest recreation were measured at the 1-km2 pixel scale in the Taihu Lake Basin (TLB) of China from 1990 to 2010. Furthermore, we quantified the trade-offs and synergies of services at different periods of urbanization and across the 1-km2 pixel scale and the county scale. We aim to find which ecosystem services interactions temporally vary and depend on spatial scale. Our results found that: 1). Tremendous amount of cultivated lands were converted to construction land, and rapidly shrank from 1990 to 2010. 2). Determined by land use, different ecosystem services had spatial heterogeneity of their strength. Ecosystem services hot spots experienced an increasing trend while cold spots showed a trend of decreasing first and then increasing from 1990 to 2010. 3). Trade-offs between provisioning services and regulating services at the 1-km2 pixel scale changed over time. There was a new synergy between freshwater supply and aquatic production at the 1-km2 pixel scale in 2010 with the human demand. 4). From 1990 to 2010, the changes of provisioning services led to trade-offs among provisioning services, regulating services and cultural services at two scales. Taking temporal variation and scale dependence into account, this research is helpful to the delineation of "Ecological Conservation Redline" and implement the project of "Grain for Green". We also provide suggestions for maintaining ecosystem services with economic growth in China's Yangtze River Economic Belt for land use policies and decision making.