Understanding the relationships between ecosystem services and associated social-ecological drivers in a karst region: A case study of Guizhou Province, China

• Published in: Progress in physical geography Vol. 45; no. 1; pp. 98 - 114
• Main Authors: Qiu, Sijing, Peng, Jian, Dong, Jianquan, Wang, Xiaoyu, Ding, Zihan, Zhang, Hanbing, Mao, Qi, Liu, Hongyan, Quine, Timothy A, Meersmans, Jeroen
• Format: Journal Article Web Resource
• Language: English
• Published: London, England SAGE Publications 01.02.2021; Sage Publications Ltd; SAGE Publications Ltd
• Subjects: Biochemistry, biophysics & molecular biology; Biochimie, biophysique & biologie moléculaire; Bundles; Bundling; Carbon sequestration; Ecological effects; Ecosystem management; Ecosystem service bundle; Ecosystem services; Ecosystems; Karst; Landscape; Life sciences; Light intensity; Luminous intensity; Net Primary Productivity; Population density; Provisioning; Sciences du vivant; Social factors; Socioeconomic data; Socioeconomic factors; Socioeconomics; Soil water; Sustainable ecosystems; Urban development; Water yield; China; landscape sustainability; determinants; trade-offs and synergies; Ecosystem service bundle; karst region
• ISSN: 0309-1333; 1477-0296; 1477-0296
• DOI: 10.1177/0309133320933525

Understanding the relationships among multiple ecosystem services could improve the landscape capacity to provide benefits to human society. However, the underlying mechanisms shaping ecosystem services relationships are still unclear although some studies have been conducted to explore how natural and socioeconomic factors influence the relationships among ecosystem services. In this study, the karst landscape in southwestern China, a vulnerable system with intensive human activities, was focused on, aiming to explore relationships between ecosystem services and associated social and ecological factors. The results showed that the distribution of eight individual ecosystem services were spatially heterogeneous and clustered based on the characteristics of the karst landscape. The relationships between provisioning services and regulating services, such as grain production and net primary productivity, as well as water yield and soil retention, were quite different between high karst coverage regions and low karst coverage regions. Among five ecosystem service bundles identified, ecosystem services in the urban development bundle were mainly determined by socioeconomic factors, while in the other four bundles of multifunction, grain production, habitat conservation, and carbon sequestration, ecosystem services were dominated by ecological factors. However, socioeconomic factors (i.e. population density and night-time light intensity) appeared to explain the overall ecosystem service delivery more than karst terrain. This study provided insights for sustainable ecosystem management in a vulnerable karst region through exploring social-ecological factors of the relationships among ecosystem services.