Characterization of Ecosystem Services and Their Trade-Off and Synergistic Relationships under Different Land-Use Scenarios on the Loess Plateau

Maoqiu Xiong, Fujie Li, Xiaohuang Liu (), Jiufen Liu, Xinping Luo, Liyuan Xing, Ran Wang, Hongyu Li and Fuyin Guo
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Maoqiu Xiong: School of Earth Resources, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan), Wuhan 430074, China
Fujie Li: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China
Xiaohuang Liu: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China
Jiufen Liu: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China
Xinping Luo: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China
Liyuan Xing: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China
Ran Wang: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China
Hongyu Li: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China
Fuyin Guo: Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects, Ministry of Natural Resources of the People’s Republic of China, Beijing 100055, China

Land, 2023, vol. 12, issue 12, 1-18

Abstract: The Loess Plateau is one of the most fragile ecological regions in China due to its shortage of water resources and severe soil erosion. The rapid development of urbanization and the implementation of the project of returning farmland to forest (grass) have caused the ecological environment of the region to be strongly impacted by human activities. It is necessary to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of ecosystem services and trade-off/synergy relationships on the Loess Plateau, to achieve scientific management of ecological services and sustainable development of the region. This study quantitatively assesses three ecosystem services of water yield (WY), carbon storage (CS), and soil conservation (SC) on the Loess Plateau under different scenarios from 2000 to 2030 by using the InVEST and PLUS models. Further, the trade-off and synergistic relationships among the ecosystem services have been investigated by Spearman correlation analysis. The results showed that the land-use differences are more obvious under different policy scenarios, with a sharp expansion of constructed land, a gradual increase of forest land, and a continuous decrease of arable land in the Loess Plateau from 2000 to 2020; the water yield and soil conservation increase from 2000 to 2020, and the carbon storage shows an opposite trend. The soil conservation and carbon storage scenarios are the best under the ecological conservation scenario in 2030, while the water yield service is the best under the economic development scenario. There is a synergistic relationship between CS and SC, while there is a trade-off relationship between CS and WY. In addition, there are significant trade-off effects between SC and WY. These results can support guiding land-use management and ecological restoration.

Keywords: ecosystem services; the Loess Plateau; InVEST; PLUS (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:12:y:2023:i:12:p:2087-:d:1284193

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