In response to ecosystem degradation from rapid economic development, China began investing heavily in protecting and restoring natural capital starting in 2000. We report on China's first national ecosystem assessment (2000-2010), designed to quantify and help manage change in ecosystem services, including food production, carbon sequestration, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, water retention, flood mitigation, and provision of habitat for biodiversity. Overall, ecosystem services improved from 2000 to 2010, apart from habitat provision. China's national conservation policies contributed significantly to the increases in those ecosystem services.

Recent expansion of the scale of human activities poses severe threats to Earth’s life-support systems. Increasingly, protected areas (PAs) are expected to serve dual goals: protect biodiversity and secure ecosystem services. We report a nationwide assessment for China, quantifying the provision of threatened species habitat and four key regulating services—water retention, soil retention, sandstorm prevention, and carbon sequestration—in nature reserves (the primary category of PAs in China). We find that China’s nature reserves serve moderately well for mammals and birds, but not for other major taxa, nor for these key regulating ecosystem services. China’s nature reserves encompass 15.1% of the country’s land surface. They capture 17.9% and 16.4% of the entire habitat area for threatened mammals and birds, but only 13.1% for plants, 10.0% for amphibians, and 8.5% for reptiles. Nature reserves encompass only 10.2–12.5% of the source areas for the four key regulating services. They are concentrated in western China, whereas much threatened species’ habitat and regulating service source areas occur in eastern provinces. Our analysis illuminates a strategy for greatly strengthening PAs, through creating the first comprehensive national park system of China. This would encompass both nature reserves, in which human activities are highly restricted, and a new category of PAs for ecosystem services, in which human activities not impacting key services are permitted. This could close the gap in a politically feasible way. We also propose a new category of PAs globally, for sustaining the provision of ecosystems services and achieving sustainable development goals.

We quantified the soil conservation service of ecosystems in China on a GIS platform using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE) and revealed spatial patterns and impacts of this service. The results showed that the total amount and mean capacity of soil conservation service in China were 214.64 billion t a − 1 and 224.42 t ha −1 a −1 , respectively. South-east China generally displayed a much higher capacity than the north-west, and ecosystems with a capacity of N1000 t ha − 1 a − 1 were primarily located in mountain areas, including the Tsinling, Nanling, and Wuyi Mountains. Through comparisons, ecosystems located in the provinces of Fujian, Guangxi, Zhejiang, those in the basins of south-eastern rivers, the Pearl River, and the Yangtze River, and those at elevations of 200-1000 m all performed much better than others, from the erosion control perspective. As for the impacts, the spatial characteristics of soil conservation service in China were primarily controlled by climate and terrain at the national scale. In addition, population growth might not affect the soil conservation service directly, whereas land reclamation could impair this service and subsequently exacerbate soil erosion. Finally, the results of this study could contribute to soil erosion control and ecosystem protection in China.

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Inner Mongolia, an autonomous region of the People’s Republic of China, has experienced severe soil erosion following a period of rapid economic development and urbanization. To investigate how urbanization has influenced the extent of soil erosion in Inner Mongolia, we used urbanization and soil erosion data from 2000 through 2010 to determine the relationship between urbanization and soil erosion patterns. Two empirical equations—the Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and the Revised Wind Erosion Equation (RWEQ)—were used to estimate the intensity of soil erosion, and we performed backward linear regression to model how it changed with greater urbanization. There was an apparent increase in the rate of urbanization and a decrease in the area affected by soil erosion in 2010 compared to the corresponding values for 2000. The urban population stood at 11.32 million in 2010, which represented a 16.47% increase over that in 2000. The area affected by soil erosion in 2000 totaled 704,817 km2, yet it had decreased to 674,135 km2 by 2010. However, a path of modest urban development (rural–urban mitigation) and reasonable industrial structuring (the development of GDP-2) may partially reduce urbanization’s ecological pressure and thus indirectly reduce the threat of soil erosion to human security. Therefore, to better control soil erosion in Inner Mongolia during the process of urbanization, the current model of economic development should be modified to improve the eco-efficiency of urbanization, while also promoting new modes of urbanization that are environmentally sustainable, cost-effective, and conserve limited resources.

Abstract. The spatial patterns of soil erosion (SE) are an important part of ecological security patterns and critical to erosion control. We assessed the SE and its spatial distribution in China based on geographic information system (GIS) and spatial data sets using the Universal Soil Loss Equation (USLE). The soil erosion area (SEA) and soil erosion amount (SEM) totaled 173.06 million ha and 8.87 billion Mg, respectively, with an average soil erosion rate (SER) of 9.39 MgÁha À1 Áyr À1 . Slight erosion dominated from the aspect of SEA, whereas extreme erosion contributed the most in terms of SEM. Spatial heterogeneity in soil erosion was obvious in China, with heavily eroded areas mainly concentrated in the Loess Plateau, the Three Gorges reservoir area, and the hot, dry valley of the Jinsha River. Regionally, the provinces of Tibet, Sichuan, Yunnan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Gansu, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Guizhou, and Guangxi, and the basins of the Yangtze River, Yellow River, and southwestern rivers made a large contribution to the SEA and SEM. Geographically, soil erosion increased, then decreased with increasing slope and elevation. Slopes of 15-258 and 8-158 and elevations of 1000-2000 m were the most seriously eroded. Cropland and grassland ecosystems were major sources of SE, with their SEA and SEM accounting for 64.44% and 77.96% of the total. This study revealed the current situation and spatial characteristics of SE in China on the national scale, which can serve as a scientific basis for regional SE control and decision-making policy.

Human activities significantly alter ecosystems and their services; however, quantifying the impact of human activities on ecosystems has been a great challenge in ecosystem management. We used the Universal Soil Loss Equation and county-level socioeconomic data to assess the changes in the ecosystem service of soil conservation between 2000 and 2010, and to analyze its spatial characteristics and driving factors in the southwestern China. The results showed that cropland in the southwestern China decreased by 3.74%, while urban land, forest, and grassland areas increased by 46.78%, 0.86%, and 1.12%, respectively. The soil conservation increased by 1.88 × 10 11 kg, with deterioration only in some local areas. The improved and the degraded areas accounted for 6.41% and 2.44% of the total land area, respectively. Implementation of the Sloping Land Conversion Program and urbanization explained 57.80% and 23.90% of the variation in the soil conservation change, respectively, and were found to be the main factors enhancing soil conservation. The 2008 Wenchuan earthquake was one of the factors that led to the degradation of soil conservation. Furthermore, industrial adjustment, by increasing shares of Industry and Service and reducing those of Agriculture, has also promoted soil conservation. Our results quantitatively showed and emphasized the contributions to soil conservation improvement made by implementing ecological restoration programs and promoting urbanization. Consequently, these results provide basic information to improve our understanding of the effects of ecological restoration programs, and help guide future sustainable urban development and regional industrial restructuring.

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