Quantifying the Temporal and Spatial Patterns of Ecosystem Services and Exploring the Spatial Differentiation of Driving Factors: a Case Study of Sichuan Basin, China

Abstract

Exploring the factors that drive the change of ecosystem services (ES) is very important for maintaining ES function and zoning ecological management, especially in the Sichuan Basin area with high spatial heterogeneity such as natural and socio-economic characteristics. Taking the Sichuan Basin in China as an example, the PCA-MGWR model was constructed to explore the temporal and spatial patterns of ES in the Sichuan Basin from 2000 to 2015. The potential driving factors including anthropogenic factors, geomorphological factors, climate factors, and vegetation factors would be analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA). To illustrate the impact of spatial dependence in the data, the multi-scale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) technology was selected to explore the spatial differentiation of the impact of these four dimensions on ES to reflect the local differences of ecosystem service driving mechanisms in more detail. The results showed that 1) from the perspective of time series evolution, carbon storage (CS) and soil conservation (SC) in ES in the Sichuan Basin showed an upward trend, while water yield (WY) showed a downward trend; from the perspective of spatial patterns, except the main urban areas of Chengdu and Chongqing, the CS service level of other regions was high; The spatial distribution characteristics of SC services were “low in the middle and high in the periphery”; the high value area of WY service was located in Northeast Sichuan. 2) Among natural factors, elevation (DEM), slope (SLO), NDVI, annual average temperature (TEM), and annual average precipitation (PRE) had a higher contribution rate to ES, while among socio-economic factors, GDP density (GDP), night light (LIG), and population density (POP) had a higher contribution rate to ES, while other factors had a lower contribution rate. 3) Combined with the PCA-MGWR model, we analyzed the comprehensive response and spatial differentiation of driving factors to ES in the Sichuan Basin and explained in detail the influence of anthropogenic factors, geomorphological factors, climatic factors, and vegetation factors and their spatial heterogeneity in ES. It is expected that the spatial differences in the impact degree of different indicators can be considered when formulating the countermeasures of ES in the Sichuan Basin, to provide theoretical support for the implementation of regional ecological management and control.

Construction, Evaluation, and Optimization of a Regional Ecological Security Pattern Based on MSPA–Circuit Theory Approach

“…The geographical traits of the ecological resilience in the basin were determined using the Getis-Ord G* method, often known as hot-spot analysis. This was calculated as follows [ 3 ]: where represents the amount of ecological resistance change of spatial unit j , represents the binary spatial weight matrix, n represents the number of spatial units, and the higher the Z-score of the index, the tighter the aggregation of hot-spots; on the other hand, the lower the score, the tighter the aggregation of cold-spots.…”

“…When it comes to ensuring sustainable regional development, ecological safety is the starting point and a necessary pre-condition. The loss of habitat, fragmentation, and other threats to biodiversity have resulted in a steady decline in both the number of animals and the quality of the regional ecological environment [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]. On the other hand, ecosystems are fragile and sensitive, so the intensification of human activities will inevitably cause damage to the ecological security pattern (ESP) [ 1 , 4 ].…”

“…Among these are ecological sources, which are the patches that play an important role in biodiversity conservation. In the past, in the process of source selection, scholars have generally used qualitative ecosystem types [ 12 ], quantitative habitat importance [ 13 ], ecological sensitivity [ 14 ], and ecosystem services [ 3 ] to unify the sources in the ESP. The preceding considerations are adequate for determining the commonality of sources but are insufficient for studying their characteristics.…”

“…It is noteworthy that most studies on the ESP have focused on the identification of ecological sources and the identification of research paradigms for ecological corridor construction but have typically neglected to effectively evaluate the ESP and provide subsequent optimization measures [ 5 , 8 ]. In the earlier days, the ESP construction was aimed at biodiversity conservation; however, with the development of an ecosystem service assessment and the recognition of the importance of ecological security [ 3 , 24 ], it was found that the ESP would then have an impact on local socio-economics [ 25 , 26 ], and the subsequent attention was gradually focused on the spatial structure of ecosystems [ 27 ], ecological functions and processes [ 28 ], coupled ecosystem services [ 29 ], and other related components [ 5 ]. Therefore, this study enhances the analysis process of evaluation and optimization for key elements that make up the ESP, such as patches, corridors, and nodes, in order to achieve the important goal of identifying effective management of the ESP at a regional scale.…”

Coupling and Coordination Relationship between the Tourism Economy and Ecosystem Service Value in Southern Jiangsu, China

“…Ecosystem services refer to all the benefits directly or indirectly obtained by human beings from the ecosystem to meet the needs of human life and social development [ 22 , 23 ]. Ecosystem service functions are classified into the categories of regulation service, support service, supply service and cultural service [ 24 , 25 ]. Supply services are the supply of food, raw materials and water resources by the ecosystem [ 26 ].…”