Water retention is an important factor in ecosystem services, owing to its relationships with climate and land-cover change; however, quantifying the independent and combined impacts of these variables remains a challenge. We use scenario analysis and the InVEST model to assess individual or combined impacts of climate and land cover on water retention in the Upper Yangtze River Basin. Water retention decreased from 1986 to 2015 at a rate of 2.97 mm/10a in response to increasing precipitation (3.94 mm/10a) and potential evapotranspiration (16.47 mm/10a). The rate of water retention change showed regional variability (from 68 to −18 mm/a), with some eastern regions experiencing an increase and most other regions experiencing a decrease. Farmland showed the highest decrease (10,772 km2), with land mainly converted into forest (58.17%) and shrub land (21.13%) from 2000 to 2015. The impact of climate change (−12.02 mm) on water retention generally was greater than the impact of land cover change (−4.14 mm), at the basin scale. Among 22 climate zones, 77.27% primarily were impacted by climate change; 22.73% primarily were impacted by land cover change. Our results demonstrate that both individualistic and integrated approaches toward climate and vegetation management is necessary to mitigate the impacts of climate change on water resources.
Ecological management based on the ecosystem approach promotes ecological protection and the sustainable use of natural resources. We developed a quantitative approach to identify the ecological function zones at the country-scale, through integrating supply and demand of ecosystem services. We selected the biologically diverse hotspot of Baoxing County, which forms a part of the Sichuan Giant Panda World Heritage Site, to explore the integration of ecosystem services supply and demand for ecosystem management. Specifically, we assessed the various support, provision, regulating, and cultural services as classified by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. We applied the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs) model to spatially map habitat quality, water retention, and carbon sinks, and used statistical data to evaluate food products, animal husbandry, and product supply services. We then quantified the demands for these services in terms of population, protected species, hydropower, water, and land use. The relationship between areas of supply and areas of demand was discussed for each township, and the spatial variability in the supply–demand relationship was also considered. As a result, we spatially divided the county into six ecological functional areas, and the linkages between each region were comprehensively discussed. This study thus provides a detailed methodology for the successful implementation of an ecosystem management framework on a county-scale based on the spatial partitioning of supply and demand.
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