Service Trade-offs Research Articles

Traditional agricultural practices and their contribution to habitat quality and carbon storage in arid Northwest Mexico: a social-ecological approach in the Rio Sonora sub-watershed

Along with environmental factors, agricultural activity is one of the main drivers of change in riparian landscapes of arid regions. Some agricultural practices are considered more sustainability-oriented than others. Despite this, their use is not widespread and their effect on the provision of ecosystem services is not clearly established. Thus, we propose an empirical framework for studying the effects of traditional agricultural practices on regulating ecosystem services in priority and spatially restricted ecosystems. Through spatial analysis and community field work, this study assesses changes in the use of two traditional agricultural practices: living fencerows and acequia irrigation systems and their effect on biodiversity and ecosystem service: habitat quality and carbon storage. Results show that the use of living fencerows promotes habitat quality and carbon storage, but their use is restricted by functional and socioeconomic factors. Acequia systems promote the provision of carbon storage but have a negative influence on habitat quality, and their use is changing mainly due to environmental and functional factors. The presence of obligate riparian vegetation in different configurations maintains the highest values for habitat quality and carbon storage, but it doesn’t provide the functional purpose of fencerows or acequias. We suggest that the expansion of voluntary and official conservation areas that promote regeneration of riparian vegetation adjacent and around agricultural areas could help mitigate floods, provide materials and suitable conditions for the maintenance of fencerows and acequias, enhance water and soil quality and many other services needed in agriculture. We consider our proposal to be useful for future assessments of ecosystem services tradeoffs and social-ecological dynamics in other understudied regions with predominantly agricultural activity.

Ecosystem Services Trade-Offs and Synergies following Vegetation Restoration on the Loess Plateau of China

The Loess Plateau (LP) is a heavily soil-eroded area. Since the year 1999, the Chinese government has carried out the “Grain for Green Project (GGP)” that has focused on increasing the regional vegetation coverage. Understanding the temporal and spatial variation of ecosystem services and the synergy in the LP is important for prospective regional re-vegetation and watershed administration. Therefore, three typical watersheds in the LP were selected: Huangfuchuan, Dalihe, and Yanhe. The spatial and temporal changes in carbon storage (CS), soil conservation (SC), and water yield (WY) in the watersheds were analyzed by the InVEST model from 2000 to 2020. Correlation analysis and root mean square deviation (RMSD) were used to investigate and compare the trade-offs in different ecosystem services (ESs). The results showed that the ES in the Huangfuchuan, Dalihe, and Yanhe watersheds overall developed in a positive direction, and increased from north to south. CS and SC showed a positive correlation in the three watersheds; however, there were negative correlations between CS and WY and between SC and WY. From 2000 to 2020, the trade-offs among CS, SC, and WY in the study area were in the descending order of the Yanhe, Dalihe, and Huangfuchuan watersheds, while the comprehensive benefits were in the opposite order. The results provided an essential basis for the high-quality development and ecological environment preservation of the Yellow River basin.

Construction of ecological security pattern of national ecological barriers for ecosystem health maintenance

The National Ecological Barrier Zones are an important part of China’s ecological security strategy. The construction of a scientific and reasonable ecological security pattern (ESP) is important for the healthy development of national ecological barrier zones. The existing literature does not consider the impact of the potential changes in ecosystem health and land use on ESP construction. In this study, we considered a typical composite national ecological barrier area, the Sichuan-Yunnan ecological barrier, to analyze the ecosystem health of such areas; we considered the probability of future land growth change, circuit theory, and ecosystem service trade-off and synergy, to construct a sustainable ESP. Spatial heterogeneity was observed in the ecosystem health level of the Sichuan-Yunnan ecological barrier; the high-value areas of ecosystem health were mostly distributed in the central and southern parts of the study area, but the low-value areas were mostly distributed in the northeastern and western regions. The ESP contained 246 ecological sources (distributed in the forest and grassland contiguous areas in the south, central, and northeast regions), 563 ecological corridors that portrayed obvious differences in spatial distribution, 123 ecological pinchpoints, 231 ecological barriers, and topographic gradient characteristics. Based on this data, we proposed the relevant policy opinions on zoning control. The results show that incorporating trade-offs for ecosystem services into ecosystem health assessments can lead to a more effective selection of ecological sources. Meanwhile, the ESP constructed by using the probability of land growth changes to correct the resistance surface can more truly reflect the need for ESP construction under the future development trend. The research framework of “ecosystem health assessment that incorporates ecosystem service trade-offs - the probability of future land growth changes - circuit theory” could address the technical issues in constructing the ESP of compound large regional/national ecological barrier regions and key ecological function areas.

Trade-Off Analyses of Multiple Ecosystem Services and Their Drivers in the Shandong Yellow River Basin.

With the intensification of conflicts between different ecosystem services, how to achieve a win-win situation between socio-economic development and ecological protection is an important issue that needs to be addressed nowadays. In particular, how to better quantify and assess the intensity of ecosystem service trade-offs and their relative benefits, and to identify the influencing factors are issues that need to be studied in depth. Based on the INVEST model, this paper analyzed the evolution of spatial and temporal patterns of ecosystem services such as Carbon Storage (CS), Food Production (FP), Habitat Quality (HQ), and Water Yield (WY) in the Shandong Yellow River Basin (SYRB) in 2000, 2010 and 2020. Next, we quantitatively measured the trade-off intensity and revealed the key influencing factors of the trade-off intensity evolution using automatic linear models, root mean square deviation, and geographically weighted regressions. Subsequently, we further analyzed the impact of the correlation between environmental and socio-economic factors on the trade-off intensity of ecosystem services. The results indicated that the temporal and spatial changes of the four main ecosystem services in SYRB area were inconsistent. WY showed a fluctuating trend, with a large interannual gap. CS and FP are on the rise, while HQ is on the decline. Spatially, WY and HQ showed a decreasing distribution from the center to the periphery, while FP and CS showed a decreasing distribution from the southwest to the northeast. The location characteristics of SYRB's four ecosystem services and their trade-offs were obvious. FP had absolute location advantage in ecosystem service trade-offs. Most of the four ecosystem services showed significant trade-offs, and the trade-off intensity had significant spatial heterogeneity, but the trade-off between FP and CS was relatively weak. At the same time, there were also differences in the trends of trade-off intensities. Counties with low trade-off intensity were mostly located in mountainous areas; these areas are less disturbed by human activities, and most of them are areas without prominent services. Counties with high trade-off intensities were mostly concentrated in areas with relatively developed agriculture; these areas are more disturbed by human activities and are mostly prominent in FP. The trade-off intensity of ecosystem services in SYRB was affected by several factors together, and there were difference characteristics in the degree and direction of influence of each factor. Moreover, these influencing factors have gradually changed over 20 years. In terms of the spatial distribution at the county scale, the influence areas of the dominant drivers of different trade-off types varied greatly, among which the areas with NDVI, CON, and PRE as the dominant factors were the largest. In the future, in effectively balancing regional economic development and ecological environmental protection, quantifiable correspondence strategies should be developed from the administrative perspective of counties and regions based on comprehensive consideration of the locational advantages of each ecosystem service and changes in trade-offs.

Challenges in trade-off governance of ecosystem services: Evidence from the Loess Plateau in China

Trade-offs of ecosystem services (ESs) are valuable for decision-making when integrating growth, the achievement of human well-being, and the maintenance of ecosystem functions. Incorporating trade-offs of ESs into land-use decisions has become a major challenge for regional environmental governance, and a deeper understanding of the complex interaction patterns between ESs is a prerequisite for achieving sustainable management of social and ecological systems. This study analyzed the spatial and temporal dynamics and trade-off changes in eight ESs on the Loess Plateau during 2000–2015 using multi-source data and integrated explicit assessment methods, with the following results: 1) Grain production was widely distributed, raw material provision and net primary productivity (NPP) showed northwest to southeast stepwise growth, carbon sequestration and soil conservation were concentrated in high vegetation coverage areas in the southeast, oxygen production was similarly distributed to raw material provision, and recreational and cultural services were centered in urbanized areas. 2) There were significant synergies among raw material provision, oxygen production and NPP, with trade-offs existing mainly between water conservation and NPP, oxygen production, and raw material provision, all of which had consistently increasing correlation coefficients. 3) The number of trade-off service pairs increased, and the intensity of trade-offs strengthened where the pairs between grain production and oxygen production, recreation, and NPP changed from synergy to trade-off. It is recommended that the long-term impacts of urban land expansion, slope afforestation, and climatic factors such as precipitation and temperature on water conservation and other services be assessed in an integrated manner in ecosystem management and that appropriate, scientific response strategies be developed. This study provides theoretical and decision-making references for regulating the complex trade-offs of ESs in ecologically fragile regions worldwide.

Spatial and Temporal Characteristics of Ecosystem Service Trade-Off and Synergy Relationships in the Western Sichuan Plateau, China

Clarifying the complex relationships among ecosystem services (ESs) and the driving mechanisms of ecosystem service (ES) is essential for supporting regional ES and ecological sustainability. Although studies on ES relationships provide guidance for regional ecological management, the driving mechanisms of ES have not been adequately studied, especially in areas with complex natural environments and progressive urbanization. Combined with the data on land use, climate, NDVI, and soil data, this paper aims to explore this issue by analyzing the relationships among ESs and the driving mechanisms of ESs in the western Sichuan Plateau region of China. Firstly, the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of five ecosystem services (food supply, water supply, habitat quality, soil conservation, and carbon storage) from 2000 to 2020 were analyzed by the InVEST model. Second, the trade-offs/synergistic relationships among ESs were analyzed using SPSS as well as the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient method in MATLAB. Finally, the Geodetector model was further used to reveal the influencing factors of ecosystem services in the western Sichuan Plateau. The results showed that: (1) Water supply decreased in the western Sichuan Plateau from 2000 to 2020, but increased in the eastern part; habitat quality was generally good in the whole Sichuan Plateau, but decreased in some areas; carbon storage showed an overall improving trend; soil conservation showed an overall increasing and then decreasing trend, and food supply services showed an increasing trend. (2) From 2000 to 2020, food supply and other services in the western Sichuan Plateau were in a trade-off relationship; all other service pairs showed a synergistic relationship. (3) In terms of space, the relationships between ecosystem services showed spatial heterogeneity. There was a synergistic relationship between food supply and habitat quality in some areas, such as Litang County and Xinlong County, and there was a trade-off relationship between water supply and carbon storage services in some areas, such as Ruoergai County and Daocheng County, etc. (4) The Geodetector results showed that food supply and soil conservation were mainly influenced by the slope (0.682, 0.672), annual precipitation was the strongest explanation for water supply (0.967), and habitat quality and carbon storage were the most influenced by NDVI (0.876, 0.828); meanwhile, each ecosystem service was interactively influenced by multiple factors. Based on the results, we proposed ecological management recommendations for the western Sichuan Plateau, the most important one being that the western Sichuan Plateau should protect and rationally use the existing natural resources, especially the existing forest and grassland resources, and at the same time reform the agricultural structure and scientifically plan urban development, to promote the coexistence of cities and nature. We took the western Sichuan Plateau of China, where urbanization and a complex natural environment are in opposition, as an example, to explore its ecosystem services, relationships, and driving mechanisms, and then put forward suggestions on ecological management and control, providing a reference for future regional coordination between urbanization and the natural environment.

Uneven Distribution of Ecosystem Services along the Yarlung Zangbo River Basin in Tibet Reveals the Quest for Multi-Target Policies of Rural Development in Less-Favored Areas

This study was conducted in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau which is a typical less-favored ecologically fragile area. First, we constructed a GIS-based spatial gridding structure over the study area, the Yarlung Zangbo river basin in China’s Tibet, and used a value-assessment model to measure supply, support, regulation, and culture ecosystem services in each study grid. We then analyzed the spatiotemporal patterns of different ecosystem services in the region from 2000 to 2020. In addition, we conducted a spatial visualized analysis of the trade-off and synergies of multiple ecosystem services in each study grid. We found that: (1) On the temporal scale, from 2000 to 2020, the values of the four ecosystem services for supply, support, regulation, and culture along the basin demonstrated an upward trend. (2) On the spatial scale, the values of ecosystem services showed an uneven distribution, with a decline trend from east to west along the basin. (3) From the perspective of land use types, due to the large areas of water, grassland, and forest along the river basin, the ecosystem service values of the three types of land use ranked among the top levels. (4) The trade-offs and synergies between different ecosystem services and their spatial distribution along the river basin showed an uneven distribution pattern. The ecosystem services zoning revealed that the policies in guiding rural sustainability in the less-favored areas should adjust the measures to local conditions, it’s necessary to establish multiple targets across the entire region.

Dramatic shift in the drivers of ecosystem service trade-offs across an aridity gradient: Evidence from China's Loess Plateau

Increased aridity creates challenges for sustainable ecosystem management due to the potential for trade-offs among ecosystem services. However, our understanding of how ecosystem service trade-offs (EST) respond to aridification remains limited. Here, generalized additive models and structural equation modeling were used to explore EST dynamics within an aridity gradient on the Loess Plateau, China. Trade-offs between water yield and both carbon storage and habitat quality showed nonlinear relationships with aridity, first increasing and then decreasing. Interestingly, climatic and human factors mostly indirectly influenced EST via effects on landscape characteristics. In regions with an Aridity Index (AI) value of <0.5, climatic and human factors strongly drove EST; in regions with AI > 0.5, landscape characteristics were most important. Therefore, landscape characteristics acted as the key regulators of EST. Importantly, AI values of ∼0.5 represented a transition point, after which dramatic shifts in EST-driver relationships were observed. As >22 % of the Earth's terrestrial surface is projected to reach this level of aridity by 2100, further research on this boundary (between sub-humid and semi-arid areas) is urgently needed to protect ecosystems from the effects of increasing aridity. This study may serve as a valuable reference for mitigating the potential negative effects of increased aridity on human well-being.

Spatio-Temporal Changes, Trade-Offs and Synergies of Major Ecosystem Services in the Three-River Headwaters Region from 2000 to 2019

The Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR) is an important part of the ecological barrier of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau. Understanding the TRHR’s major ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies is important for scientifically integrating and optimizing ecosystem services. We studied the spatial–temporal changes, trade-offs and synergies of the TRHR’s water retention (WR), soil retention (SR), windbreak and sand fixation (WD) and forage supply (FS) services from 2000 to 2019. The results showed that: (1) The TRHR’s WR, SR and FS services gradually decreased from east to west in space, and showed an increasing trend between years; the WD service gradually decreased from west to east in space, and showed a downward trend between years. (2) The synergistic relationship was the dominant relationship between the TRHR’s grassland regulation and provision services. Future research on ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies should consider both the type of ecosystem services and the ecosystem’s multifunctionality. (3) The improvement of the TRHR’s ecosystem services in the future needs to focus on improving the fraction vegetation coverage (FVC) through ecological engineering measures in Maduo, and other areas near the 400 mm precipitation line, and enhancing the synergy of ecosystem services. (4) The restoration of TRHR FVC needs to consider the difference in natural endowments. It is recommended to adopt near-natural restoration in the northwest of the TRHR, and avoid setting too high restoration targets. Planting high-quality pastures in the southeast of the TRHR with good water and heat conditions and rationally allocating grassland ecological and production functions are recommended measures. (5) The TRHR’s grassland should give priority to the development of the ecological functions of natural grasslands, and then give full play to its production functions. Overgrazing is strictly prohibited, so as to avoid the “over-transformation” of ecosystem regulation services to supply services.

A causal structure-based multiple-criteria decision framework for evaluating the water-related ecosystem service tradeoffs in a desert oasis region

Study regionQira oasis, a typical catchment alluvial fan composed by agriculture and natural shrubs at the south margin of Taklimakan Desert, China Study focusWater management modeling involves causal interaction effects of various water-related ecosystem services (ESs) under multiple-criteria water management alternatives, measuring expected benefits of water-related ESs. Many multi-criteria decision tools have been developed to mitigate some of major challenges of ESs tradeoffs. However, few formal ES trade-off frameworks have focused on the multiple-criteria alternatives assessment and indifference point identifications of water-related ES. This paper proposes a causal structure-based multiple-criteria decision framework to model water-related ESs, and to detect the points where the decision makers would be indifferent between two alternatives and to compare with the optimum recommendation value using Bayesian networks (BNs) with analytic hierarchy process (AHP). New hydrological insights for the regionThe study confirms that the proposed causal structure-based multiple-criteria decision framework is a promising approach to modeling possible climate, irrigation, and water policy scenarios and to examining influences of those scenarios on water-related ESs. The framework can be used to effectively recommend optimum water management alternatives and to identify the indifference points by combining BNs into AHP under stakeholder participation. The framework also provides a qualitative and quantitative assessment to reduce the conflicts and uncertainties of multiple-criteria weights in diagnosing water-related ES trade-offs, owing to different stakeholder preferences.

Spatiotemporal changes of ecosystem service trade-offs under the influence of forest conservation project in Northeast China

Trade-offs between ecosystem services are measures of the degree to which the changing differences between the individual ecosystem services. Although changes in ecosystem service trade-offs are critical for forest ecosystem management, spatiotemporal changes in trade-offs are currently less studied, especially under the influence of ecological engineering implementation. Therefore this study explored the spatiotemporal changes and drivers of ecosystem service trade-offs in various forest types following the implementation of the natural forest conservation project (NFCP), with the example of the Greater Khingan Mountains. Spatial analyses, and root mean square error (RMSE) were applied to investigate spatiotemporal changes in trade-offs, and geodetector was employed to assess their driving factors. The results indicated that among all ecosystem service pairs from 1990 to 2020, the trade-offs between habitat quality and net primary productivity (NPP), NPP and soil conservation showed a growing trend. However, the trade-offs between habitat quality and water conservation, NPP and water conservation, and soil conservation and water conservation showed a declining trend. The ecosystem service trade-offs of coniferous (0.47) were higher than either broad-leaved (0.37) or shrubs (0.28). Moreover, changes in the ecosystem service trade-offs of all kinds of forests were spatially heterogeneous. The drivers with the greatest explanatory power in coniferous, broad-leaved, and shrubs were land use (22.68%), land use (15.19%), and NDVI (20.63%), respectively. Environmental factors contributed great mean explanatory power (62.27–71.67%) to the trade-offs than anthropogenic activity factors. Therefore, spatiotemporal changes and drivers of trade-offs in different forests should be contemplated when conducting subsequent ecological restoration programs in the future.

Distinguishing the Impacts of Rapid Urbanization on Ecosystem Service Trade-Offs and Synergies: A Case Study of Shenzhen, China

Cities and urban areas are an important part of global sustainable development, and the health and well-being of urban residents are closely related to the quality, quantity, and diversity of urban ecosystem services. Although the rapid urbanization process has changed the structure and function of urban ecosystems, which is notably different from natural ecosystems, the affected ecosystem services and their interactions—the trade-off impact of urbanization intensity on ecosystem services—remain to be discussed. Using land use/land cover and impervious surface area remote sensing datasets, and InVEST and RUSLE-related ecosystem services models to evaluate seven typical ecosystem services in Shenzhen, this study explored the evolution of multiple ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies during the transition from a natural ecosystem to an urban ecosystem, and how they are affected by urbanization intensity through correlation analysis and a discrete time-step simulation model. The results show that: (1) from 1978 to 2018, in the process of ecosystem transformation, grain production dropped from 228,795 tons to 11,733 tons, fruit production peaked in 1990 at 271,508 tons, and service capacity of both showed obvious degradation. Conversely, the cultural service capacity was remarkably enhanced. (2) With the increase in urbanization level, the trade-off and synergy of ecosystem services gradually transition from linear to nonlinear. The rapid urbanization process drives the nonlinear degradation of ecosystem services and the nonlinear enhancement of synergy. (3) Over the past four decades, ecosystem service bundles within the same kilometer grid have shown a quadratic curve-like decrease with increasing impervious surface area, slowly in the early stages and faster in the later stages. This study concludes that urbanization intensity has a significant impact on ecosystem service trade-offs, which can provide support for the formulation of ecological protection and restoration strategies in territorial space based on ecosystem services.

Climate change–drylands–food security nexus in Africa: From the perspective of technical advances, challenges, and opportunities

Climate change impacts on drylands pose more vexing risks to socio-ecological systems, resulting in food security issues, biodiversity loss, and livelihood shifts in Africa. This study critically reviewed relevant literature to evaluate the complexities and feedback loops between the climate–drylands–food security (CDF) nexus, which helps assess tactics to attain sustainable dryland ecosystem management under the changing environment. Comprehensive CDF frameworks are explored for dryland dynamics, ecosystem services, and food security (FS), and current high-precision ecosystem observation networks are used to detect regional-level climate variability and identify hotspots. In addition, this review also examines challenges and uncertainties for CDF systems and effective agrarian innovations as a way forward. To bridge the gap from science to policy making in the CDF nexus, it is vital to enhance the impacts and feedbacks of ecohydrological processes on agrarian production, ecosystem service tradeoffs and their effects on livelihoods, and regional development and preservation by optimization of the ecological water security pattern. This state-of-the-art assessment uses acquired information and knowledge to conceptually evaluate the past, current, and future impacts and risks and facilitates decision making through the delivery of long-term sustainability and socio-ecological resilience.

Elevation dependency of ecosystem services supply efficiency in great lake watershed.

Although it is well acknowledged that the improvement of ecosystem services is conducive to human well-being, there is still a lack of approach to determining reasonable improvement goals, especially for ecosystem services with trade-off relationship. Based on the method of production possibility frontier (PPF), this study presented a novel approach to identifying the improvement goals of interacting ecosystem services with considering their context dependency. By calculating the gap between the current supply of ecosystem services and the reasonable improvement goal, the ecosystem services supply efficiency was defined and measured to identify the optimization potentials of ecosystem services with trade-off relationship. The results showed that the supply efficiency of ecosystem services (grain production and water purification) decreased and then increased significantly along with the increasing of farmland area ratio in the Dongting Lake Basin (DLB). Meanwhile, the inflection point appeared when the farmland area ratio was 0.16. The change of farmland area ratio was significantly influenced by the change of elevation, with the regression coefficients of elevation on the left and right sides of the inflection point being -1.28 and -0.5 respectively, which were higher than that of other factors. Along with the increasing of elevation, the ecosystem services supply efficiency decreased but increased when the elevation exceeded 721.74 m. Furthermore, the sub-watersheds with farmland area ratio below the inflection point, i.e. mainly high elevation areas, were located around national or provincial level poor counties, posing a great challenge for improving ecosystem services with trade-off relationship. Development strategies for sub-watersheds should consider the non-linear trade-offs of ecosystem services, especially the opposite stages of supply efficiency. This study highlighted the elevation dependency of ecosystem services supply efficiency through farmland area ratio in great lake watershed.

Ecosystem service trade-offs and identification of eco-optimal regions in urban agglomerations in arid regions of China

Ecosystems play an essential role in maintaining biodiversity, regulating climate, and promoting functional biodiversity in arid urban agglomerations. Accurately assessing the characteristics of ecosystem services and identifying eco-optimal regions in urban agglomerations in arid regions are important for ecological security and the sustainable development of regional ecological systems. In this study, the ecosystem service functions of Urban Agglomeration on the Northern Slope of the Tianshan Mountains (UANSTM) were evaluated using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model based on the Geographic Information System (GIS) platform coupled with multi-source data. Moreover, the eco-optimal regions were identified by the Ordered Weighted Average (OWA). The findings demonstrate that the development and ecological construction of the UANSTM lead to the conversion of a large amount of unused land to grassland, cultivated land, and construction land. Analyzing the relationship between ecosystem services and land types shows that the high value ecosystem services are mainly distributed in forest land and grassland. In terms of changes in ecosystem services, the net primary productivity (NPP) and habitat quality (HQ) values increased, while the value of soil retention (SR) and water yield (WY) decreased. The relationship between ecosystem services is mainly pairwise synergy, except for HQ-WY and NPP-WY. Regarding spatial distribution, the trade-offs and synergies of ecosystem services demonstrated different geospatial heterogeneity. The OWA model was employed to establish different risk values and weights to simulate different risk scenarios. The area of coverage of risk scenario 5, with the highest trade-off values, was selected as the eco-optimal region. The eco-optimal regions were mainly located in the urban agglomeration's central and southwestern high-altitude areas, where a safety barrier was established for the ecological region. The results of this study can serve as a reference for the ecological construction, land planning, and management of urban agglomerations in arid regions.

D2D MULTI-OBJECTIVE ROUTE OPTIMIZATION IN MANET ENVIRONMENT

Over the past decades, wireless networks and devices have experienced intensive growth. Route discovery and selection from device to device (D2D) that are randomly distributed came across services trade-offs. This paper presents an optimal routing technique for the MANET environment-based D2D network. The optimization method considers the Lagrange Multiplier approach to maximize bit rate along with constraints minimization of the latency and packet loss. This method is executed for D2D nodes by active route election for links. An intensive simulation is applied and the obtained simulation results manifest the effectiveness of the presented Lagrange Optimization of Rate, Delay, and Packet loss algorithm (LORDP) in the optimal routing as compared to the Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO) and Genetic Algorithm (GA).

Identifying Ecosystem Service Trade-Offs and Their Response to Landscape Patterns at Different Scales in an Agricultural Basin in Central China

Identifying relationships among multiple ecosystem services (ESs) at different scales and the factors affecting such relationships is the foundation for sustainable ecosystem management. A case study was conducted in the Sihu Lake Basin, an agricultural basin in Central China, to examine the interactions among ESs across different scales and the responses to landscape pattern changes (2000–2020). The results indicate that (1) agricultural land and wetlands were converted into construction land and gradually decreased in size; forestland and artificial channels gradually increased in size. (2) ESs had spatial heterogeneity in their strength at the grid and county scales. (3) Most relationships between ESs were synergistic at the grid and county scales, and most correlations increased as the scale increased due to landscape consistency. (4) The landscape metrics explained approximately 45.56–61.06% of the variations in ESs, and the main influencing factor was agricultural land. Our results demonstrated that the construction of rivers and channels, dense and widely distributed agricultural land and construction land were more positively correlated with increasing crop production and nitrogen export, whereas forestland exhibited a stronger contribution to increasing carbon storage and water yield. These findings explore appropriate management methods for agricultural development and ecological conservation in agricultural basins.

Analysis on the ecosystem service protection effect of national nature reserve in Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from weight perspective

The analysis of the protection effect from the perspective of ecosystem service function (ESF) is an important basis for proposing optimal management strategies in nature reserves. Aiming at the internal, external, and different types of nature reserves of the National Nature Reserve in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau from 1992 to 2015, this study used the InVEST model to analyze the dynamic changes in four key ESFs, including carbon storage, water conservation, soil retention, and habitat quality. Based on this, the protective effect of nature reserves was evaluated. The main conclusions were as follows: (1) From 1992 to 2015, the spatial distribution pattern of carbon storage, water conservation, soil retention, and habitat quality inside and outside National Nature Reserve in Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau is “high in the east and decreasing to low in the west”. On the time scale, the stability inside the reserve was higher than that outside. (2) Among all types of nature reserves, the ESF of forest ecosystem nature reserves always ranked highest, and the ESF of desert ecosystem nature reserves ranked lowest. (3) During the 23-year period, the protection effect of ecosystem services inside National Nature Reserve was between 1.0821 and 1.0870, which was always higher than that of the outside areas. (4) The protection effect of the comprehensive ESF in forest ecosystem nature reserves ranked highest with a value of 1.3169. Although the protection effect of desert ecosystems is relatively weak, it has continuously increased from 0.8836 to 0.8955 over the 23-year period. Based on the changes in the ecological processes of nature reserves, exploring their protection effectiveness will help strengthen the comprehensive understanding of ecosystems in conservation research. The development of effective policies and management measures has had a positive effect on the adaptive adjustment of ecosystem service trade-offs.

Ecosystem services trade-offs in landscapes: trends, areas of greatest impact, and temporal evolution of the scientific field

Ecosystem services trade-offs in landscapes: trends, areas of greatest impact, and temporal evolution of the scientific field

Ecosystem service trade-offs and spatial non-stationary responses to influencing factors in the Loess hilly-gully region: Lanzhou City, China

The identification of trade-offs and synergies relationships among ecosystem services is one of the important contents of evaluating the regional ecological environment, and is of great significance to regional ecological governance and sustainable development. In this study, Lanzhou was selected as the research area. Four key ecosystem services, such as habitat quality, soil retention, food production, and ecological leisure were evaluated by using the InVEST model and related formulas. The difference comparison method was used to measure trade-offs and synergies relationships among ecosystem services. Then the spatial non-stationarity response of the trade-offs to influencing factors was explored through GWLR model. Finally, the trade-offs intensity among the ecosystem services of each township was calculated by using the PPF and the trade-offs intensity index, and township development strategies to enhance synergies had been formulated. The results showed: (1) The high-value areas of habitat quality, soil retention, and ecological leisure were all distributed in the areas with high vegetation coverage such as nature reserves, national forest parks, and forest farms, while the high-value areas of food production services were distributed in the Qinwangchuan Basin, Zhuanglang River and Wanchuan Basin and other areas with abundant water resources. (2) The spatial distribution pattern of trade-offs and synergies relatiionships among ecosystem services had heterogeneity. Among them, the habitat quality-food production, soil rentention-food production and habitat quality-ecological leisure services were mainly trade-offs in the whole study area, and the remaining services were mainly synergistic. (3) The relationships between ecosystem services trade-offs and influencing factors, including ≥0 °C accumulated temperature, DEM and construction land area proportion, were robust, and the response of trade-offs to ≥0 °C accumulated temperature and DEM was highly similar. (4) Based on the principle of superposition analysis method, the whole study area was divided into four types of areas: I (4 types of services coexistence), II (3 types of services coexistence), III (2 types of services coexistence) and IV (to develop at most one service). This study can provide certain scientific guidance for the optimization and governance of regional ecosystems and the synergic development of townships.