Optimizing Land Use to Mitigate Ecosystem Service Trade-Offs Using Multi-Scenario Simulation in the Luo River Basin

Abstract

For a long time in the past, China has implemented a large number of “Grain for Green” projects (GFGPs) to improve the ecological environment. However, it is still unclear whether excessive GFGPs will exacerbate the trade-off of ecosystem services (ESs). Additionally, it is a great challenge to explore the response mechanism of the trade-off relationship to changes in land use and to mitigate the trade-offs by optimizing land use. Taking a typical GFGP basin in the central Yellow River basin as an example, we identified the trade-off areas and measured the nonlinear trade-offs between ESs under different scenarios. This was carried out based on the synergistic potential of the production possibility frontier (PPF) and the first-order derivative. We also identified the optimal scenario for mitigating the trade-offs of ESs. The results showed that excessive GFGPs have intensified the ES trade-offs. The differences in land use types lead to spatial heterogeneity in the relationship of ESs. When carbon storage (CS) is 9.58 t/km2 and habitat quality (HQ) is 0.4, the relationship with water yield (WY) changes from trade-off to synergy, respectively, and the trade-off area is mainly distributed in cropland and construction land. Compared with 2020, the EP scenario has the highest synergy potential and the lowest trade-off intensity, and can alleviate the ES trade-off to the greatest extent.