Trade-offs and Synergies of Ecosystem Services in Karst Area of China Driven by Grain-for-Green Program

Author(s):  
Xiaofeng Wang

<p>As an important means regulating the relationship between human and natural ecosystem, ecological restoration program plays a key role in restoring ecosystem functions. The Grain-for-Green Program (GFGP, One of the world’s most ambitious ecosystem conservation set-aside programs aims to transfer farmland on steep slopes to forestland or grassland to increase vegetation coverage) has been widely implemented from 1999 to 2015 and exerted significant influence on land use and ecosystem services (ESs). In this study, three ecological models (InVEST, RUSLE, and CASA) were used to accurately calculate the three key types of ESs, water yield (WY), soil conservation (SC), and net primary production (NPP) in Karst area of southwestern China from 1982 to 2015. The impact of GFGP on ESs and trade-offs was analyzed. It provides practical guidance in carrying out ecological regulation in Karst area of China under global climate change. Results showed that ESs and trade-offs had changed dramatically driven by GFGP . In detail, temporally, SC and NPP exhibited an increasing trend, while WY exhibited a decreasing trend. Spatially, SC basically decreased from west to east; NPP basically increased from north to south; WY basically increased from west to east; NPP and SC, SC and WY developed in the direction of trade-offs driven by the GFGP, while NPP and WY developed in the direction of synergy. Therefore, future ecosystem management and restoration policy-making should consider trade-offs of ESs so as to achieve sustainable provision of ESs.</p>

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (19) ◽  
pp. 3966
Author(s):  
Baoan Hu ◽  
Zhijie Zhang ◽  
Hairong Han ◽  
Zuzheng Li ◽  
Xiaoqin Cheng ◽  
...  

Ecological engineering is a widely used strategy to address environmental degradation and enhance human well-being. A quantitative assessment of the impacts of ecological engineering on ecosystem services (ESs) is a prerequisite for designing inclusive and sustainable engineering programs. In order to strengthen national ecological security, the Chinese government has implemented the world’s largest ecological project since 1999, the Grain for Green Program (GFGP). We used a professional model to evaluate the key ESs in Lvliang City. Scenario analysis was used to quantify the contribution of the GFGP to changes in ESs and the impacts of trade-offs/synergy. We used spatial regression to identify the main drivers of ES trade-offs. We found that: (1) From 2000 to 2018, the contribution rates of the GFGP to changes in carbon storage (CS), habitat quality (HQ), water yield (WY), and soil conservation (SC) were 140.92%, 155.59%, −454.48%, and 92.96%, respectively. GFGP compensated for the negative impacts of external environmental pressure on CS and HQ, and significantly improved CS, HQ, and SC, but at the expense of WY. (2) The GFGP promotes the synergistic development of CS, HQ, and SC, and also intensifies the trade-off relationships between WY and CS, WY and HQ, and WY and SC. (3) Land use change and urbanization are significantly positively correlated with the WY–CS, WY–HQ, and WY–SC trade-offs, while increases in NDVI helped alleviate these trade-offs. (4) Geographically weighted regression explained 90.8%, 94.2%, and 88.2% of the WY–CS, WY–HQ, and WY–SC trade-offs, respectively. We suggest that the ESs’ benefits from the GFGP can be maximized by controlling the intensity of land use change, optimizing the development of urbanization, and improving the effectiveness of afforestation. This general method of quantifying the impact of ecological engineering on ESs can act as a reference for future ecological restoration plans and decision-making in China and across the world.


2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaofeng Wang ◽  
Xinrong Zhang ◽  
Xiaoming Feng ◽  
Shirong Liu ◽  
Lichang Yin ◽  
...  

2018 ◽  
Vol 10 (11) ◽  
pp. 4036 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dongliang Dang ◽  
Xiaobing Li ◽  
Shengkun Li ◽  
Huashun Dou

Grassland restoration projects are currently being implemented to mitigate human disturbance to the natural environment and reduce grassland degradation. China’s Grain-for-Green Programme (GFGP), including one project implemented in Duolun County, China, in 2000, has significantly improved the overall ecological health of this region. Using a modeling approach, this study quantified changes in four ecosystem services (ESs), including Net Primary Production (NPP), soil conservation (SC), water yield (WY), and sandstorm prevention (SP), in Duolun County between 2000 and 2016. We found the total NPP, water yield, and soil conservation increased by 80.44%, 248.2%, and 12.2%, respectively, during this period, while the sandstorm prevention decreased by 55.9%. Unlike other areas of GFGP implementation, the improvement of the ecological environment in Duolun County is largely attributed to the increased of vegetation coverage (88%) instead of land use circulation (12%). We found the grassland is a factor that reduces the trade-off while this effect was related with the grassland coverage. Future policies should be based on the mechanisms of vegetation underlying the ESs change and the relationships of ESs in order to achieve sustainable provision of ESs.


2019 ◽  
Vol 39 ◽  
pp. 100998 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jian Peng ◽  
Xiaoxu Hu ◽  
Xiaoyu Wang ◽  
Jeroen Meersmans ◽  
Yanxu Liu ◽  
...  

Author(s):  
Qianru Yu ◽  
Chen-Chieh Feng ◽  
NuanYin Xu ◽  
Luo Guo ◽  
Dan Wang

Evaluating the impact of an ecological restoration program on ecosystem services is crucial, given the role of such a program in boosting sustainable ecosystem management. This study examines the impact of one of the large-scale ecological restoration programs in China, the Grain for Green Program (GGP), on ecosystem service management in the Exibei region of China. This region is studied, as it is a key source water area with rich biodiversity and has been experiencing GGP for 20 years. To achieve the stated goal the changes of land use and ecosystem services value (ESV) and the ecosystem services scarcity value (ESSV) in the Exibei region were quantified and assessed based on remote sensing images from 1990, 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, 2015 and field survey data. The results indicated that the expansion of construction land and the increase of water body were the dominant land use changes throughout the study period. Farmland, forestland and grassland decreased by 2.61%, 0.47% and 1.41% after the GGP, respectively. The ESV of the entire Exibei region increased slightly in response to land use change during 1990–2015, with an annual loss of 0.08% before the implementation of GGP and an annual growth of 0.03% after the implementation of GGP. Moreover, forestland was the dominant contributor to ESSV after the implementation of the GGP. Its annual growth rate was four times higher than before the commencement of GGP. The results of this study contribute to the protection of the Exibei region ecosystem, and more importantly, the future management of the ecosystem service in the hilly regions of southern China.


2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (11) ◽  
pp. 4762
Author(s):  
Xiufen Li ◽  
Yichen Tian ◽  
Tian Gao ◽  
Lei Jin ◽  
Shuangtian Li ◽  
...  

The effects of forest restoration on ecosystem services and their trade-offs are increasingly discussed by environmental managers and ecologists, but few demonstrations have analyzed ecosystem service trade-offs with a view to informing afforestation choices. Here, we examined how the Grain for Green Program (GGP), an ambitious reforestation program in China, affected ecosystem services. We quantified regulating services and provisioning service in the potential scenarios, which were developed to improve ecosystem services better. The results indicated the GGP drove 14.5% of land-use/land-cover from 2000 to 2015, and all the regulating services increased. Prioritizing reforestations in steep-sloped and riparian farmlands can promote flood mitigation, water purification, and soil retention services by 62.7%, 25.5%, and 216.1% as compared with 2015 levels, respectively, suggesting that the improvements strongly depend on afforestation locations. Driven by the new GGP policy, a high proportion of economic forest increased provisioning service (272.2%), but at the expense of decreases in soil retention (−25.1%), flood mitigation (−11.4%), water purification (−36.6%), and carbon storage (−48.5%). We identified a suitable scenario that would reduce the trade-offs, which associated with afforestation types and their spatial allocation. Identifying priority areas of afforestation types can inform the GGP policy to assure sustainable and broader benefits.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (6) ◽  
pp. 582
Author(s):  
Peng Tian ◽  
Jialin Li ◽  
Luodan Cao ◽  
Ruiliang Pu ◽  
Hongbo Gong ◽  
...  

Ecosystem services (ESs) is a term used to describe the foundations of the well-being of human society, and several relevant studies have been carried out in this area. However, given the fact that the complex trade-offs/synergy relationships of ESs are a challenging area, studies on matching mechanisms for ES supply and demand are still rare. In this study, using the InVEST model, ArcGIS, and other professional tools, we first mapped and quantitatively evaluated the supply and demand of five ES types (water yield, soil conservation, carbon retention, food supply, and leisure and entertainment) in Hangzhou, China, based on land use, meteorology, soil, and socio-economic data. Then, we analyzed the matching characteristics between the supply and demand of these ESs and analyzed the complex trade-offs and synergy between the supply and demand of ESs and factors affecting ESs. The results of this analysis indicate that although the ES supply and demand of carbon retention tended to be out of balance (supply was less than demand), the supply and demand of the other four ES types (i.e., water yield, soil conservation, food supply, and leisure and entertainment) were in balance (supply exceeded demand). Finally, the spatial heterogeneity of the supply and demand of ESs in Hangzhou was significant, especially in urban areas in the northeast and mountainous areas in the southwest. The supply of ESs was based on trade-offs, whereas the demand of ESs was based on synergy. Our results further show that the supply and demand of ESs in the urban area in Hangzhou were out of balance, whereas the supply and demand of ESs in the western region were coordinated. Therefore, the linkage of ES flows between this urban area and the western region should be strengthened. This innovative study could provide useful information for regional land use planning and environmental protection.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (4) ◽  
pp. 566
Author(s):  
Xiangkun Qi ◽  
Qian Li ◽  
Yuemin Yue ◽  
Chujie Liao ◽  
Lu Zhai ◽  
...  

Under the transformation from over-cultivation to ecological protection in China’s karst, how human activities affect ecosystem services should be studied. This study combined satellite imagery and ecosystem models (Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA), Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) and Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST)) to evaluate primary ecosystem services (net ecosystem productivity (NEP), soil conservation and water yield) in a typical karst region (Huanjiang County). The relationships between human activities and ecosystem services were also examined. NEP increased from 441.7 g C/m2/yr in 2005 to 582.19 g C/m2/yr in 2015. Soil conservation also increased from 4.7 ton/ha to 5.5 ton/ha. Vegetation recovery and the conversion of farmland to forest, driven largely by restoration programs, contributed to this change. A positive relationship between increases in NEP, soil conservation and rural-urban migration (r = 0.62 and 0.53, P < 0.01, respectively) indicated decreasing human dependence on land reclamation and naturally regenerated vegetation. However, declining water yield from 784.3 to 724.5 mm highlights the trade-off between carbon sequestration and water yield should be considered. Our study suggests that conservation is critical to vegetation recovery in this region and that easing human pressure on land will play an important role.


2018 ◽  
Vol 30 ◽  
pp. 1-39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Claudia Gutierrez-Arellano ◽  
Mark Mulligan

Land use and cover change (LUCC) is the main cause of natural ecosystem degradation and biodiversity loss and can cause a decrease in ecosystem service provision. Animal populations are providers of some key regulation services: pollination, pest and disease control and seed dispersal, the so-called faunal ecosystem services (FES). Here we aim to give an overview on the current and future status of regulation FES in response to change from original habitat to agricultural land globally. FES are much more tightly linked to wildlife populations and biodiversity than are most ecosystem services, whose determinants are largely climatic and related to vegetation structure. Degradation of ecosystems by land use change thus has much more potential to affect FES. In this scoping review, we summarise the main findings showing the importance of animal populations as FES providers and as a source of ecosystem disservices; underlying causes of agriculturalisation impacts on FES and the potential condition of FES under future LUCC in relation to the expected demand for FES globally. Overall, studies support a positive relationship between FES provision and animal species richness and abundance. Agriculturalisation has negative effects on FES providers due to landscape homogenisation, habitat fragmentation and loss, microclimatic changes and development of population imbalance, causing species and population losses of key fauna, reducing services whilst enhancing disservices. Since evidence suggests an increase in FES demand worldwide is required to support increased farming, it is imperative to improve the understanding of agriculturalisation on FES supply and distribution. Spatial conservation prioritisation must factor in faunal ecosystem functions as the most biodiversity-relevant of all ecosystem services and that which most closely links sites of service provision of conservation value with nearby sites of service use to provide ecosystem services of agricultural and economic value.


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