Trade-offs and synergies of ecosystem services in the Yangtze River Delta, China: response to urbanizing variation

Abstract

Since entering the 'Millennium of the cities' omnipresent rapid urbanization has caused dramatic changes to ecosystem functions and generated huge ecological risks across city catchments. An understanding of how multiple ecosystem services are associated across complex social-ecological systems is required for urban sustainability. However, few studies have explored how the tradeoffs and synergies of ecosystem service response to the traits of urbanization processes such as the variation of undevelopeddeveloped continuum. In this study, we took the Yangtze River Delta in China, a typical megapolis, as the case study area and quantified seven ecosystem services at a 10km x 10km spatial scale. We presented the spatial distribution and interactions of these services and identified whether they coexist in the form of specific cluster types. We found positive spatial autocorrelations across the study site. A significant tendency of trade-offs was detected between regulating and agricultural provisioning services, and we also spotted the possibility of both trade-offs and synergies that regulating and (different) cultural services were able to provide. Our results identified four different cluster types, and the cluster distributions are strongly associated with the urbanization levels -a tendency for urbanizing areas to witness the function shift in the certain order of 'ecology -provision -multifunction -accessibility'. This provides a deeper understanding of the interactions among multiple ecosystem services and how they were determined by the ongoing social-ecological influences. The close connection between urbanization processes and ecosystems interact across developing and developed areas should be taken into consideration for future landscape planning.

Species Diversity and Distribution Pattern of Heritage Trees in the Rapidly-Urbanizing Province of Jiangsu, China

“…Eastern China has witnessed rapid economic development in recent decades. With the increase of urban population, rapid and sustained urbanization may cause dramatic change of ecosystem functions of cities [35,36], thereby inevitably affecting the survival, distribution, and growth of ancient trees. As an eastern-central coastal province of China, Jiangsu has experienced rapid social and economic development over the past four decades.…”

Using Ecosystem Services to Inform Sustainable Waterfront Area Management: A Case Study in the Yangtze River Delta Ecological Green Integration Demonstration Zone

“…At the same time, our study also highlights some unique challenges associated with integrating ecosystem service assessment into waterfront area management in rapidly urbanizing regions such as the Yangtze River Delta. Rapid urbanization can lead to loss or degradation of natural habitats which provide important ecosystem services [47][48][49]. This underscores the need for careful planning and management to ensure that urban development does not compromise essential ecosystem services [19,50].…”

Responses of ecosystem services and their trade-offs and synergies to spatiotemporal differentiation of urbanization: Evidence from the Su-Xi-Chang region, China

“…The reason for selecting the Su-Xi-Chang region as the study area is that it is typical and representative in the temporal evolution and spatial pattern of urbanization 30 . Since the early 1980s, a large number of people from other parts of China have come to the Su-Xi-Chang region.…”