Impacts of Land Use and Climate Change on Water-Related Ecosystem Service Trade-offs in the Yangtze River Economic Belt

Abstract

Land use/cover change (LUCC) and climate change have important influences on ecosystem services (ESs) and their interactions, particularly in regions with rapid socioeconomic development. However, little research has distinguished the impacts of these 2 factors on ES interactions. Therefore, the impacts of LUCC and climate change on water-related ecosystem service (WES) trade-offs in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) were measured by combining spatial analysis with ES valuation. These results indicated that water yield, soil retention, and water purification presented varying degrees of increase from 1990 to 2020, with rates of 4.53%, 21.80% and 5.40%, respectively. The order of the mean WES trade-offs in the upstream, midstream, and downstream regions remained stable at the grid scale from 1990 to 2020, while there were important changes at the county scale. Climate change had a greater impact on WES trade-offs than LUCC, with climate change dominating 88.17% of the total area. The effect of climate change on WES trade-offs across areas was in the order of downstream > midstream > upstream, while the effect of LUCC was not obvious. The relative importance of drivers on WES trade-offs from 1990 to 2020 was dominated by climate dominance (71.50%), followed by LUCC to climate dominance (13.66%) and least by LUCC dominance (0.65%). This research emphasized the importance of LUCC and climate change on ES trade-offs in heavily disturbed areas, providing important guidance for multi-objective land management that sustainably provides ESs.