Quantifying the spatiotemporal characteristics of ecosystem services and livelihoods in China’s poverty-stricken counties

Abstract

Understanding the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods is a prerequisite for poverty eradication and ecological protection in China. In this paper, we intended to quantify the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods in 717 poverty-stricken counties in China. First, we identified distinct levels of ecosystem services and poverty respectively in the poverty-stricken areas based on the ecosystem services subsystem index and poverty livelihoods subsystem index. Then, we calculated the coupling degree and coupling coordination degree between the ecosystem services and the poverty livelihoods in China’s poverty-stricken counties from 2000 to 2015. Finally, we analyzed the temporal and spatial evolution of the coupling between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods. The results indicate that the ecosystem services showed a trend of first decreasing and then increasing, while the poverty level showed an increased trend. In addition, the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods in poverty-stricken counties was also improved from 2000 to 2015. However, the coupling degree value or coupling coordination degree values in some counties or contiguous impoverished areas showed a decreased trend, the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods in those counties or areas was higher conflict. Future more, the coupling relationship in China’s poverty-stricken counties was mainly intermediate conflict and low conflict, which need to improve in the future. Thus, it is suggested that effective measures are required to lift ecosystem services out of the poverty trap and into sustainable livelihoods.

Keywords

ecosystem services / poverty livelihoods / coupling degree / coupling coordination degree / coupling relationship / spatiotemporal characteristic

Lilei ZHOU is a Ph.D candidate at the Chongqing University and his major is ecology. His research interest is the ecosystem services of wetland.

E-mail: [e-mail].

Dongjie GUAN is a professor at the Chongqing Jiaotong University. She received her BS Degree in human geography from the Chongqing Normal University in 2007, and her Ph.D Degree in environmental engineering from the University of Kitakyushu in 2009. Her current research interests include ecology and environmental science.

E-mail: [e-mail].

Xingzhong YUAN is a professor at the Chongqing University. He received his BS degree in animal ecology from the Shandong Normal University in 1988, and his Ph.D Degree in ecology from the East China University in 2001. His current research interests include ecosystem design, wetland ecology and ecological engineering.

E-mail: [e-mail].

Mengjie ZHANG is a Ph.D candidate at the Chongqing University and her major is ecology. Her research interest is wetland ecology.

E-mail: [e-mail].

Weijun GAO is a professor at the University of Kitakyushu, academician of the Japanese Academy of Engineering. He received his BS Degree in building environment from the Zhejiang University in 1987, and his Ph.D Degree in urban environment from the Waseda University in 1996. His current research interests include distributed energy, energy consumption and environmental load, and resource consumption in the life cycle of circular residences.

E-mail: [e-mail].

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Acknowledgments

This work is partially supported by the Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (No. KJZD-K201800702), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing in China (No. cstc2020jcyj-jqX0004), Late Project of National Social Science Foundation in China (No. 20FJYB035), the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science project (No. 20YJA790016) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2018CDYJSY0055).

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