ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Ecosystem Restoration
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fenvs.2025.1617210
This article is part of the Research TopicEcosystem Services and Sustainable Restoration Interlinking Soil, Geological, and Vegetation Interactions for Sustainable DevelopmentView all 9 articles
Research on the driving mechanisms of ecosystem services in the alpine canyon areas of Southwest China
Provisionally accepted
- 1Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
- 2Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
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The Alpine Canyon Area of Southwest China represents a region of ecological and cultural significance, where multi-ethnic communities rely heavily on ecosystem services for sustenance, including food, water, and other vital resources. To systematically evaluate these dependencies, this study utilized multi-source datasets to quantify the spatiotemporal patterns of four key ecosystem services in the region: carbon sequestration (CS), food supply (FS), water yield (WY), and soil conservation (SR). Spearman correlation analysis, geographically weighted regression, and the geographic detector method were employed to analyze trade-offs and synergies among these ecosystem services and explore their driving mechanisms. The results indicated: (1) The four ecosystem services in the study area exhibited significant spatiotemporal heterogeneity. (2) During the study period, the synergies were observed between CS-WY, CS-SR, and WY-SR, highlighting a particularly strong synergy for WY-SR. Conversely, trade-offs were observed for CS-FS, FS-WY, and FS-SR, with the strongest trade-off occurring between FS and WY. (3) The trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services in the region were significantly influenced by a combination of natural and socio-economic factors, with elevation, slope degree, temperature, and population density playing pivotal roles. Among all ecosystem services pairs, the interaction between elevation and other influencing factors represented the most critical driver combination. This study highlights the importance of ecosystem services in multi-ethnic regions, provides insights into ecosystem services trade-offs and synergies, and offers scientific support for regional ecological management.
Keywords: Southwest alpine canyon, ecosystem services, spatiotemporal patterns, tradeoffs and synergies, Geographically weighted regression model, Driving Mechanisms
Received: 24 Apr 2025; Accepted: 30 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Jiang, Hou, Zeng and Feng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jian Hou, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing, China
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