Areas Benefiting from Water Conservation in Key Ecological Function Areas in China
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Nov., 2015 Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.6 No.6 J. Resour. Ecol. 2015 6 (6) 375-385 Eco. Compensation DOI:10.5814/j.issn.1674-764x.2015.06.005 www.jorae.cn Areas Benefiting from Water Conservation in Key Ecological Function Areas in China XIAO Yu1*, ZHANG Changshun1 and XU Jie1,2 1 Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China; 2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China Abstract: Ecosystem services are transferred from the service-providing area to the service-benefiting area to satisfy human needs through some substance, energy or information. Most studies focus on the provision of ecosystem services and few focus on the demands on ecosystem services and their spatial distribution. Here, on the basis of the flow of water conservation services from the providing area to the benefiting area, the benefits produced by water conservation service are investigated and the benefiting areas are identified. The results indicate that in 2010 the water conservation service of key ecological function areas provided irrigation water for 1.67×105 km2 of paddy fields and 1.01×105 km2 irrigated fields, domestic water to urban residents and industrial water to factories, mines and enterprises of 2.64×104 km2 urban construction land and domestic water to rural residents across 3.73×104 km2 of rural settlements and formed 6.64×104 km2 of inland water which can be used for freshwater aquaculture, downstream regions comprise 1.31×104 km of navigable river, which can be used for inland shipping. The benefit areas of the key function areas located in the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River are greater and more influential benefit areas. To protect these key function areas, more attention should be paid to the maintenance and improvement of water conservation. Some benefit areas have access to the benefits produced by water conservation of nine key ecological function areas and cover 17% of the overall benefit area and the length of their channels benefited accounts for 7%. Multiple key ecological function areas should be taken into account equally in the formulation of ecological compensation policies. These research findings can serve as a scientific basis for the compensated use of and ecological compensation for ecosystem services provided by key ecological function areas. Key words: water conservation; ecosystem services; service benefit areas; key ecological function areas without knowledge about who the beneficiaries were and 1 Introduction where they were located. However, some researchers have Ecosystem services are benefits people derive from started to pay close attention to the supply and demand ecosystems (MA 2005). Through these benefits, the of ecosystem services and its balance, studying the effect ecosystem provides what humans need. Without human on human welfare by learning whether the demand of the beneficiaries and their demands, ecosystem structure and people in a certain area for ecosystems is satisfied (Anton process alone cannot form ecosystem services (de Groot et et al. 2010). Kroll et al. (2012) evaluated the demand and al. 2010; Fisher et al. 2009). Therefore, studies on ecosystem supply of energy, food and water through data on land use, services focus on the needs of people. soil, climate, population, energy consumption and grain In the beginning, the effects of ecosystem services on production on the basis of rural-urban gradients in eastern human welfare was described through the increase or Germany and analyzed changes in their spatial distribution. decrease of some ecosystem services (Costanza et al. 1997; Burkhard et al. (2012) built a relation matrix between the Kontogianni et al. 2010; Zander and Straton 2010). In supply and demand of ecosystem services and the landscape these studies, human need was perceived in a vague way, cell, through which they evaluated the supply and demand Received: 2015-10-21 Accepted: 2015-11-20 Foundation: the National Science and Technology Support Program (2013BAC03B05) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (31400411). * Corresponding author: XIAO Yu. Email: [email protected]. 376 Journal of Resources and Ecology Vol.6 No.6, 2015 of energy by virtue of land sensing, land survey and land the providing area to the benefit area, but its application cover and social and economic data and analyzed spatial has been hindered by restrictions on data and disciplinary patterns of supply and demand of ecosystem services and knowledge (Bagstad et al. 2012; Bagstad et al. 2013; their balance. However, these studies may be challenged Sherrouse et al. 2011; Wendland et al. 2010). by the spatial mismatch between the supply and demand of National Key Ecological Function Areas (NKEFA) refer ecosystem services (Brauman et al. 2007; Hein et al. 2006) to the areas whose ecosystems play an important role in in that the ecosystem services provided by an area maybe ensuring the ecological security of the whole country or a insufficient to satisfy the demand of the human society large region and where the development intensity should located there. be restricted because ecosystems are degrading and the In fact, there is an internal logical relationship between capacity to supply ecological products should be maintained the provisioning area and the benefit area: ecosystem and improved. Most of the 25 key ecological function areas services are carried by some substance, energy or in China are located at stepped landforms Level I and II and information from the provisioning area through a certain at higher altitudes, serving as a source and supplementation mode to the benefit area, which is called ecosystem for numerous rivers and playing an important role in water service flow. Studies should be conducted throughout the resource conservation. Among these key ecological function production, transport and use of ecosystem services in order areas are eight water conservation areas. The classification to understand flow from supply to demand and thereby to is aimed at protecting and restoring local vegetation and establish a causal relationship between supply and demand promoting water conservation. Ecosystems in key ecological and reflect the beneficiaries’ immediate response and function areas regulate precipitation through vegetation, feedback to the increase or decrease in ecosystem services. soil and withered litters and thus promote regional and Maass et al. (2005) assessed the services provided by nine nationwide water circulation and water balance and ecosystems, such as fresh water supply, climate regulating provide water for residents’ life, industrial and agricultural and flood control, provided by the tropical arid forest system production, aquaculture and inland shipping in downstream in the Chamela region along the Pacific coast of Mexico regions. Therefore, our study serves as a scientific basis for and drew up a sketch map about how ecosystem services the payment for ecosystem and ecological compensation are transferred from the providing area to the benefiting for ecosystem services provided by key ecological function area. Palomo et al. (2013) used participatory observation in areas by analyzing the flow of water conservation services a providing area and benefit area to look at regulating and provided by key ecological function areas from the cultural services of a coastal national park in southwestern providing area to the benefit area. We aimed to identify the Spain and formulated a conceptual model of service flow. benefits produced by water conservation services satisfying In ARIES (Artificial Intelligence for Ecosystem Services), people’s needs in downstream regions and identifying the SPANs model (Service Path Attribution Networks) was benefit areas using data on land cover, river systems, put forward to simulate the flow of ecosystem services from watershed zoning and channels. Legend Province Key ecological function area 0 300 600 1200 km Fig. 1 Distribution of NKEFA The South China in China. Sea Islands XIAO Yu, et al.: Areas Benefiting from Water Conservation in Key Ecological Function Areas in China 377 2 Methodology 2.2 NKEFA and downstream river systems 2.1 Introduction to research areas As the source and supply of numerous rivers, key There are 25 key ecological function areas in China, ecological function areas give birth to, pass through and widely located in most provinces except the eastern coastal afflux nearly 1700 rivers. For example, the Sanjiangyuan ones (Fig.1 and Table 1), covering all climate types in Steppe Meadow Marsh Area is the source of the Yangtze China, including tropical monsoon climate, subtropical River, Yellow River and Lantsang River. These rivers run monsoon climate, temperate monsoon climate, temperate into over 700 lakes and reservoirs of various types, such as continental climate and plateau mountain climate. The Dongting Lake, Poyang Lake and Taihu Lake, and serve as annual average temperature in these areas varies from an important supply of water to residential areas, industrial –2.8 to 27℃ and declines gradually from south to north; and agricultural production and inland shipping in lower annual precipitation is from15mm to 1600mm and drops reaches. gradually from southeast to northwest. Vegetation in these 2.3 Method for the identification of benefit areas areas includes mainly cold and temperate coniferous forest, temperate broadleaf-conifer forest, broadleaved deciduous The water conservation service provided by key ecological forest,