Research and application progress of ecosystem services in land use planning: A bibliometric and textual analysis

Abstract

Ecosystem services (ESs) are closely related to human well-being and regional sustainable development and play a fundamental role in regional land use planning. Therefore, this study used the bibliometric analysis and the textual analysis methods to examine the application of ES concepts, methods, and related key words in land use planning research and plans since 1997. The results show that in recent years, academic research has paid increasing attention to the application of ESs in land use planning. The number of publications and the citations of relevant papers have steadily increased over time. A total of 121 papers and 2252 citations were identified in Chinese literature for the period 1997-2017. Meanwhile, the total frequency of key words related to ESs is rising in the General Plan for Land Use (GPLU) texts from the national level to the provincial capital level. The frequency of key words related to ESs in the GPLU grew from 14630 in 1997-2010 to 25467 in 2006-2020, with a growth rate of 74%. In addition, the planning texts included more concerns on the provisioning and supporting services than the regulating and cultural services. In the future, we suggest that more effective methods should be developed to apply ESs to planning practice and more attention should be paid to the regulating and cultural services to serve the construction of ecological civilization.