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Ecosystem services, landscape pattern, and landscape ecological risk zoning in China

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Abstract

Ecosystem services represent a bridge between natural ecosystems and human well-being and are closely associated with landscape ecological risk (LER). Delimiting reasonable LER areas is important for ecosystem protection, and it is essential to link ecosystem services to LER zoning. However, only a few studies have achieved this, and the zoning accuracy of LER remains poorly understood. Therefore, in this study, we evaluated the ecosystem service value (ESV) and LER index using the equivalent value method and landscape pattern index via the remote sensing of land use data at the county level in China in 2000–2015. We applied bivariate spatial autocorrelation as well as the grey correlation analysis model to analyse the ESV–LER spatial relationships and developed a general framework to improve the accuracy of LER zoning. We found that the average ESV increased from $761.42 thousand/km2 in 2000 to $766.16 thousand/km2 in 2015, while the LER index continuously decreased in China. We also discerned a significant negative correlation between ESV and LER (p < 0.001), whereas approximately 750 counties in China exhibited high ESV and low LER indices during the study period. The final LER zoning revealed that the high-LER areas in China were mainly located in the plain areas, and the proportion of counties with high LER levels increased from 17.97% in 2000 to 26.56% in 2015. Overall, our results have important implications for ecological security, future landscape planning and design, and ecologically sustainable development in China.

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Data availability

The data used in the current study will be available from the corresponding author upon request via email.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are very grateful to the many people involved in the data collection for this article and review of this work.

Funding

The research was sponsored in part by grants from the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42001187). The project was also supported by the State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology (2021-KF-03).

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  1. Department of Geography, School of Geography and Information Engineering, China University of Geosciences, No. 68, Jincheng Street, East Lake New Technology Development Zone, Wuhan, Hubei Province, 430078, People’s Republic of China

    Jiaojiao Bian, Wanxu Chen & Jie Zeng

  2. State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Wanxu Chen

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Jie Zeng Wanxu Chen, and Jiaojiao Bian: methodology, writing—original draft, resources. Jie Zeng and Wanxu Chen: conceptualization, supervision. Jie Zeng and Wanxu Chen: writing—reviewing and editing. Jiaojiao Bian: software, data curation.

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Correspondence to Wanxu Chen.

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Bian, J., Chen, W. & Zeng, J. Ecosystem services, landscape pattern, and landscape ecological risk zoning in China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 30, 17709–17722 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-23435-5

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