Globally, ecosystems have been facing unprecedented human influence in terms of extent and intensity. In such an Anthropocene Epoch, it is critical to manage the novel ecosystems induced by massive human activities and sustain their provision of services to improve human well-being. China is a typical place to understand the service provision of such novel ecosystems due to its rapid economic development, continuous population growth, and massive urban sprawl. Recently, China has completed its first magnificent national ecosystem assessment for years 2000-2010. The national assessment compiled a massive set of data from different sources, including >20,000 remotely sensed images, >100,000 field surveys, and various historical records on biodiversity, desertification, and soil erosion. Using the InVEST (Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) tool and other biophysical models, we assessed different types of ecosystems services (e.g., water supply, food provision, soil retention, sandstorm control, flood mitigation, carbon sequestration, and habitat provision). Here we report the status and trend of China’s ecosystem services, identify the ecosystem service bundles, and examine the spatial relationships (i.e., synergies and tradeoffs) among different types of services. We also analyze how such spatial relationships vary across different biophysical, demographic, and socioeconomic gradients.
Results/Conclusions
Our results show that despite the massive anthropogenic pressures on China’s ecosystems, all the assessed ecosystem services in China increased between 2000 and 2010, thanks to the nationwide conservation policies. We also find that most of the ecosystem services were spatially clumped into ecosystem service bundles. Socioeconomic factors rather than biophysical factors largely drive the formation of ecosystem service bundles. While provisioning services often spatially negatively correlated with regulating services, different regulating services often positively correlated with each other. From rural to urbanized area, the provisioning and regulating services decline, while the cultural services dramatically increase. Our results provide a benchmark for ecosystem management in China. The Chinese government is incorporating our results into future policy design to better manage China’s ecosystems. We believe that the typical example from China also sheds light on managing other novel ecosystems across the globe.