Abstract
Urbanization inevitably interfered with the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ESs), which has a crucial impact on the ESs balance. Scientific exploration and clarification of the coupling and decoupling relationship between them can effectively reveal the disturbance of urbanization to the ecosystem, which can help to reasonably manage and protect the ecosystem. Previous studies have paid more attention to the coupling relationship but less attention to the decoupling relationship. This study comprehensively reflected urbanization from the three aspects of construction land, population, and economy and used the evaluation matrix to measure ESs. On this basis, coupling and decoupling analyses were taken to fully clarify the complex relationship between urbanization and ESs balance in China, so as to provide a reference for the formulation of relevant policies. Coupling aspect, the coupling degrees between the proportion of construction land (CLP) and ESs balance index (ESBI) were higher only in the central and eastern plains. The coupling degrees between population density (PD) and ESBI, economic density (ED) and ESBI, and land development index (LDI) and ESBI were only lower in the central and eastern plains than in other regions. Decoupling aspect, strong, weak negative, weak, and strong negative decoupling were the main decoupling types between urbanization and ESs balance in China. Among them, the proportion of the strong decoupling type is much higher than other types, which proves the opposite relationship between the two. Weak decoupling can not only promote economic growth and social development but also protect the ecological environment and biodiversity, which is a type of sustainable development and an ideal state that urbanization should pursue. The results can provide scientific guidance for the formulation of differentiated ecosystem management policies.
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Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments on improving this paper.
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This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant nos. 42001231, 42001187, and 41701629], this research was also supported in part by the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation [Grant No. 2023M733466].
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**nyu Cui, Jie Zeng, and Wanxu Chen: methodology and resources. Jie Zeng and Wanxu Chen: conceptualization and supervision. **nyu Cui, Jie Zeng, and Wanxu Chen: writing—review and editing. **nyu Cui and Jianhua Wu: software, data curation, and writing—original draft.
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Highlights
• China’s ecosystem services can still afford the urbanization process, but they were gradually degraded.
• The strong decoupling type was the main decoupling type in China, revealing the negative impact of urbanization on ESs balance.
• The weak decoupling type represented the coordination of urbanization and ESs balance, which is the ideal state that China should pursue.
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Cui, X., Zeng, J., Wu, J. et al. The nexus between urbanization and ecosystem services balance in China: A coupling perspective. Environ Monit Assess 196, 638 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-024-12782-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-024-12782-0