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Spatiotemporal variations in ecosystem services and their trade-offs and synergies against the background of the gully control and land consolidation project on the Loess Plateau, China

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Abstract

Studying the spatiotemporal variations in ecosystem services and their interrelationships on the Loess Plateau against the background of the gully control and land consolidation (GCLC) project has significant implications for ecological protection and quality development of the Yellow River Basin. Therefore, in this study, we took Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province of China, as the study area, selected four typical ecosystem services, including soil conservation service, water yield service, carbon storage service, and habitat quality service, and quantitatively evaluated the spatiotemporal variation characteristics and trade-offs and synergies of ecosystem services from 2010 to 2018 using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model. We also analysed the relationship between the GCLC project and regional ecosystem service changes in various regions (including 1 city, 2 districts, and 10 counties) of Yan’an City and proposed a coordinated development strategy between the GCLC project and the ecological environment. The results showed that, from 2010 to 2018, soil conservation service decreased by 7.76%, while the other three ecosystem services changed relatively little, with water yield service increasing by 0.56% and carbon storage service and habitat quality service decreasing by 0.16% and 0.14%, respectively. The ecological environment of Yan’an City developed in a balanced way between 2010 and 2018, and the four ecosystem services showed synergistic relationships, among which the synergistic relationships between soil conservation service and water yield service and between carbon storage service and habitat quality service were significant. The GCLC project had a negative impact on the ecosystem services of Yan’an City, and the impact on carbon storage service was more significant. This study provides a theoretical basis for the scientific evaluation of the ecological benefits of the GCLC project and the realization of a win-win situation between food security and ecological security.

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Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the Innovation Capability Support Program of Shaanxi Province, China (2023-CX-RKX-102), the Key Research and Development Program of Shaanxi Province, China (2022FP-34), the Open Foundation of the Key Laboratory of Natural Resource Coupling Process and Effects (2023KFKTB008), and the Open Fund of Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Land Consolidation, China (300102352502).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Degraded and Unused Land Consolidation Engineering, Ministry of Natural and Resources, Xi’an, 710075, China

    Jing Wang, Yulu Wei, Siqi Liu & Jianfeng Li

  2. Institute of Land Engineering and Technology, Shaanxi Provincial Land Engineering Construction Group Co., Ltd., Xi’an, 710021, China

    Jing Wang, Yulu Wei, Siqi Liu & Jianfeng Li

  3. School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Yulu Wei

  4. Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Land Consolidation, Xi’an, 710064, China

    Biao Peng

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  1. Jing Wang
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  2. Yulu Wei
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  3. Biao Peng
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  4. Siqi Liu
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  5. Jianfeng Li
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Contributions

Conceptualization: WANG Jing, PENG Biao; Data curation: WANG Jing, WEI Yulu; Methodology: WANG Jing; Formal analysis: WANG Jing; Writing - original draft preparation: WANG Jing; Writing - review and editing: WANG Jing, WEI Yulu, PENG Biao, LI Jianfeng; Funding acquisition: PENG Biao, LIU Siqi; Resources: LIU Siqi; Supervision: WEI Yulu, PENG Biao; Project administration: PENG Biao; Software: LI Jianfeng; Validation: WANG Jing; Visualization: WANG Jing. All authors approved the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Biao Peng.

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The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

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Wang, J., Wei, Y., Peng, B. et al. Spatiotemporal variations in ecosystem services and their trade-offs and synergies against the background of the gully control and land consolidation project on the Loess Plateau, China. J. Arid Land 16, 131–145 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-024-0091-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40333-024-0091-2

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