Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791

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Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Spatial imbalance and changes in supply and demand of ecosystem

services in China
Jing Wang a,⁎, Tianlin Zhai a, Yifan Lin b, Xuesong Kong a, Ting He c
a
School of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan 430079, China
b
College of Urban and Environmental, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
c
China Land Surveying and Planning Institute, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100035, PR China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• ESPI and LDI were proposed to study

changes in supply-demand of ecosys-
tem services.
• The spatial imbalance in supply-
demand of ecosystem services was ob-
vious.
• The spatial imbalance was shrinking.
• The ESPI was negatively correlated to
the LDI in most regions in China.
• There were significant regional differ-
ences in relationships between ESPI
and LDI.

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: Human activities and regional land development have caused intense interference to ecosystems. With rapid de-
Received 26 August 2018 velopment of economy and urgent needs of life quality improvements in China, sustainable ecosystem manage-
Received in revised form 20 October 2018 ment is crucial for national ecological civilization construction. However, few studies have focused on supply-
Accepted 6 December 2018
demand patterns of ecosystem services on a national scale in China. The aim of this study was to analyze the
Available online 7 December 2018
spatial-temporal patterns and changes in the supply-demand of ecosystem services and to explore their interac-
Editor: Ouyang Wei tive relationship in the context of economic development and urbanization drivers. The ecosystem services pro-
vision index (ESPI) and land development index (LDI) were proposed to indicate the supply and demand for
Keywords: ecosystem services. The results indicated that the Low supply-High demand (L-H) pattern accounted for 3.27%
Ecosystem services of the total land area in China and was mainly concentrated in developed regions and some capital cities,
Supply where 28.95% of the total population and 51.93% of the country's GDP was generated in 2015. The spatial imbal-
Demand ance in the supply-demand of ecosystem services was obvious. From 2000 to 2015, the imbalance was shrinking,
Land development and regions with negative changes in supply-demand patterns were declining. During 2000–2008, there was an
Spatial imbalance
obvious transformation from Low supply-Low demand (L-L) to High supply-Low demand (H-L), which
China
accounted for 12.44% of the total land area due to Grain for Green and other ecological protection policies. The pro-
portion of ecological land to total land area, vegetation cover and elevation were significantly correlated with the
supply of ecosystem services. In the meantime, ESPI was negatively correlated with LDI in most regions in China.
There were also regional differences in their relationships. The rapid economic growth and the intensive land

⁎ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: wangjing-whu@whu.edu.cn (J. Wang).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.12.080
0048-9697/© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
782 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791
development resulted in a more significant decrease in ESPI in the developed regions than that in the undevel-
oped North and Northeast China. The results of this study could contribute to sustainable ecosystem manage-
ment and decision-making for Chinese ecological civilization construction.
1. Introduction
More than 50% of the earth's land resources have been developed by
human activities over human history, largely from urban development
and the expansion of agriculture (Hooke and Martínduque, 2012).
Many studies have shown that land development from natural ecosys-
tems has resulted in land use changes that could affect ecosystem struc-
tures and processes and change the supply capacity of ecosystem
services and land productivity (Verburg et al., 2009; Wang et al.,
2018a; Cerretelli et al., 2018; Jeswani et al., 2018; Arowolo et al.,
2018). Ecosystem services and their links to land use changes from the
ecosystem perspective have received increasing attention around the
world. Costanza et al. (1997) systematically estimated seventeen types
of major ecosystem services for the first time in 1997. The contents
and evaluation methods of ecosystem services were systematically pro-
posed (Daily, 1997). Ecosystem changes were closely connected with
human well-being (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). In addi-
tion, many studies also focused on the classification of ecosystem ser-
vices, the assessment of ecosystem service value, the spatial mapping
of ecosystem service supply, and the changes in ecosystem services
and their impact mechanisms (De Groot et al., 2010; Xie et al., 2010;
Wood et al., 2015). Several studies discussed the current knowledge of
the effects of land use change on ecosystem services, the relationships
between ecosystem services and human social welfare, and biodiversity
interaction (Li, 2014; Wang et al., 2018a).
The structure and processes of ecosystems could not form ecosystem
services without humanity as the beneficiaries (Fisher et al., 2009; De
Groot et al., 2010). The supply of ecosystem services is affected not
only by ecosystem functions but also by social and economic systems.
Human activities and regional land development have been identified
as important drivers of changes in ecosystem services, which can
cause strong interference to ecological functions (Schröter et al., 2005;
Estoque and Murayama, 2012; Mooney et al., 2013; Sterling et al.,
2013). The TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity) re-
ported that the economic activities of the stakeholders had created a
large demand for ecosystem services, which resulted in changes in the
ecosystem services (Kumar, 2011). With the development of human so-
ciety and increasing land development, the serious pollution and dete-
rioration of the ecological environment that has resulted from
economic growth and land development could lead to a significant de-
crease in the supply of ecosystem services and an imbalance in the
supply-demand in many regions. This imbalance has caused the phe-
nomenon of ecological deficit and environmental injustice. Numerous
previous studies have indicated the significant effects of land use
changes on ecosystem services at different scales. These studies have
significantly promoted the research progress of ecosystem services,
but more recently, some researchers have begun to pay attention to
the balance between the supply and demand of ecosystem services for
human being.
Current research has focused on the supply and demand of individ-
ual ecosystem service types, ranging from goods supply service of eco-
systems (Burkhard et al., 2012; Schröter et al., 2014; Schulp et al.,
2014; Palacios-Agundez et al., 2015; Larondelle and Lauf, 2016) to the
ecological regulation services of ecosystems (Nedkov and Burkhard,
2012; Baró et al., 2015; Goldenberg et al., 2017) and cultural services
of ecosystems (Palomo et al., 2013; Peña et al., 2015; Egarter et al.,
2017). There also have been a few studies on the support services of
ecosystems (Ma et al., 2017). These studies on the supply and demand
© 2018 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
of ecosystem services ranged from small watershed studies at the micro-
scale to medium scale city case studies (Burkhard et al., 2012; García-
Nieto et al., 2013; Peña et al., 2015). In addition, several studies mainly fo-
cused on the consumption of natural resources and quantitatively depicted
the load relationship between its supply and demand (Palacios-Agundez
et al., 2015; Li et al., 2016b; Peng et al., 2017). Analysis methods in these
studies included expert experience methods (Burkhard et al., 2012; Kroll
et al., 2012), model calculation methods (Nedkov and Burkhard, 2012;
Boithias et al., 2014), or ecological footprint methods (Xie et al., 2010;
Palacios-Agundez et al., 2015). On the other hand, several studies have
attempted to analyze the temporal and spatial changes in ecosystem ser-
vices and their socioeconomic influencing factors in China (Zhang et al.,
2013; Xie et al., 2015; Abulizi et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2018a). These studies
showed the effects of land use changes and socioeconomic influencing fac-
tors on ecosystem services as well as the demand of ecosystem services.
From the perspective of temporal scale, most contemporary studies have
focused on a certain time scale using land use data interpreted from remote
sensing images (Li et al., 2009; Baró et al., 2015; Tan, 2017). These studies,
however, lack a spatiotemporal dynamic analysis on the supply and de-
mand of ecosystem services. These studies provided a clear basis of under-
standing for Chinese studies on the supply and demand of ecosystem
services. However, few studies have focused on the spatial imbalance and
injustice of ecosystem service provisions for human beings using national
land survey data and the relationship model between the supply and
demand.
As the world's second-largest economy after the United States, China
has made remarkable achievements in its economic development. The con-
sequence of economic prosperity is the serious conflict between the in-
crease of resource consumption and environmental protection. China's
provision capacity of ecosystem services has been decreasing, and therefore
diminishing natural ecosystem must be protected more strictly and effec-
tively (Wang et al., 2018a). The construction of the ecological civilization
has been prioritized to an unprecedented extent in China. An ecosystem
sustainability perspective needs to be incorporated into decision-making
for land management. A deep understanding of the dynamic changes in
the supply and demand of ecosystem services and their relationships
with land development is crucial to addressing China's national and re-
gional development and sustainability goals. The present study was con-
ducted to analyze the spatial-temporal imbalance in the supply and
demand of ecosystem services and to explore the interactive relationship
between land development and ecosystem service provision in the context
of economic development and urbanization drivers. The aim of this study is
to provide evidence for decision-making for sustainable ecosystem man-
agement and rational and efficient land development.
2. Materials and methodologies
2.1. Data sources and preprocessing
In this study, land use data derived from the detailed national land
surveys in China was used to analyze each county's spatial-temporal
changes in the supply and demand of ecosystem services in 31 prov-
inces and autonomous regions and municipalities on the Chinese main-
land land survey area. The official national land surveys obtained
detailed and reliable data on land use from areas and locations of vari-
ous land use types and land ownership in each county (Wang et al.,
2012). Among them, data on 2009 were collected from the second na-
tional land survey conducted by the Ministry of Land and Resources.
 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791
The land use data on 2000, 2005, 2008, 2012 and 2015 were from the
annual surveys of land use change by the Ministry of Land and Re-
sources. The proportion of developed land and ecological land to total
land area in each county was calculated. Data on DEM (Digital Elevation
Model) at 1:1,000,000 scale were collected to calculate average eleva-
tion of each county. In addition, data on NDVI (Normalized Difference
Vegetation Index) products (MODIS) covered all counties in 2015
were pre-processed and the average NDVI of each county was also cal-
culated. Moreover, socio-economic information data from 2000 to 2015
were collected from China Statistical Yearbook. Data on GDP and popu-
lation for calculating the economic density and population density in
each county were also collected.
2.2. Calculation of the supply of ecosystem services
The ecosystem services provision index (ESPI) was proposed by
Wang (2015). The distribution of ESPI in China and the ESPI per unit
area in different eco-regions in China were analyzed and calculated by
quantifying different types of ecosystem services in China (Wang,
2015; Wang et al., 2018a). In this study, land use types were categorized
into six types of ecosystems, including wetland, desert, forest, grassland,
water and farmland ecosystems. Based on the distribution of ecosys-
tems and the distribution of ESPI in 2009, the ESPI per unit area of
each ecosystem in each county was calculated and analyzed. The ESPI
indicating the supply of ecosystem services in each county in 2000,
2005, 2008, 2012 and 2015 was calculated. Five grades, including the
highest supply, higher supply, medium supply, lower supply and the
lowest supply, were classified by the quantile method based on pub-
lished literature, expert experience, and case studies (Bao et al., 2016).
Fig. 1 shows the spatial distribution of the ecosystem services supply
in China in 2015.
2.3. Calculation of land development index depicting ecosystem service
demand
Three viewpoints to understand the demand of ecosystem services
were proposed by scholars in recent studies (Burkhard et al., 2012;
Fig. 1. Spatial distribution of ecosystem services provision index (ESPI) in China in 2015.
783
Villamagna et al., 2013; Geijzendorffer et al., 2015). In this study, the de-
mand of ecosystem services will be interpreted as the amount of con-
sumption and preference needs of humans and the production of
ecosystem goods and services. The demand actually represents the in-
tensity of land development or the degree of disturbances by human ac-
tivities. Based on the literature analysis and data accessibility, three
typical indicators, including the proportion of developed land, the pop-
ulation density and the economic density, were chosen to reflect the de-
mand for ecosystem services in a region (Hitzhusen, 2007; Peng et al.,
2017). The proportion of developed land was calculated by the area of
developed land to the total land area in a county, which reflected the in-
tensity of human consumption for ecosystem services. The population
density directly reflected the degree of human demand for ecosystem
services. The economic density was calculated by the gross domestic
production (GDP) per square kilometer, which indicated the level of
economic development and could indirectly reflect human's preference
for ecosystem services. The higher the level of economic development in
a region, the more ecosystem services are used in the region.
An index of the land development (LDI) depicting the demand for
ecosystem services was put forward to measure the consumption and
preference needs of human living and production for ecosystem ser-
vices using the comprehensive multi-index model (Peng et al., 2017).
Due to the significant differences in the population density and GDP in
different counties in the eastern and western regions, using the loga-
rithmic method in statistics, the local violent fluctuations were
subdivided into the calculation without affecting the overall trend of
the distribution to facilitate the subsequent analysis (Peng et al., 2017).
The comprehensive multi-index model can be expressed as:
LDI i ¼ Di  lgðP i Þ  lgðEi Þ ð1Þ
where, LDIi is the index of the land development depicting the demand
of ecosystem services in county i. Di, Pi and Ei represent the proportion of
developed land, the population density, and the economic density in
county i, respectively. The indices of LDIi indicate that the demand for
ecosystem services in each county were calculated in 2000, 2005,
2008, 2009, 2012 and 2015. Five grades, including the highest demand,
784 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791

(a) Population density (b) Economic density (c) Proportion of developed land

Fig. 2. Spatial distribution of the population density, economic density and proportion of developed land in China in 2015.

higher demand, medium demand, lower demand and the lowest de- supply-Low demand (L-L) and High supply-Low demand (H-L). The
mand, were also classified by the quantile method based on the litera- specific formula is as follows:
ture analysis and case studies (Bao et al., 2016). Fig. 2 shows the
spatial distribution of the population density, economic density and xi −‾x
x¼ ð2Þ
proportion of developed land in China in 2015. Fig. 3 shows the distribu- s
tion of the land development index (LDI) depicting ecosystem services
demand in China in 2015. 1X n
x¼ x ð3Þ
n i¼1 i
2.4. Analysis of the supply-demand pattern of ecosystem services
vffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffiffi
u n
u1 X
Referring to the method of Peng et al. (2017) and Huang et al. s¼t ðx−‾xÞ2 ð4Þ
n i¼1
(2018), Z-Scores-Standardization was used to standardize ESPI and LDI
to determine the matching pattern of supply-demand ecosystem ser-
vices. The standardized ESPI is plotted on the x-axis and the standard- where x is the standardized ESPI or LDI, xi is the ESPI or LDI of the i-th
ized LDI is plotted on the y-axis, which generates four quadrants: High evaluation unit, −x is the average of all counties, s is the standard devi-
supply-High demand (H-H), Low supply-High demand (L-H), Low ation of all counties, and n is the total number of counties. The spatial

Fig. 3. Spatial distribution of land development index (LDI) in China in 2015.

 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791
distribution of two standardized indices ESPI and LDI at 2000, 2005,
2008, 2009, 2012 and 2015 were overlaid to analyze the matching pat-
tern spatial module ArcGIS 10.3 software.
In this study, changes in matching pattern of the spatial distribution
of ESPI and LDI were also analyzed in the two periods of 2000–2008 and
2009–2015. The transformation matrix of the matching patterns in the
two periods was determined in this study.
2.5. Analysis of the relationship models between the supply and demand of
ecosystem services
In this study, relationships between the supply and demand of ecosys-
tem services were also analyzed using ESPI and LDI. Due to the significant
differences in natural geographical environment and social-economic de-
velopment in different regions in China, the relationship models were
established in seven geographical zones under the scheme of Comprehen-
sive Physical Regionalization in China (Huang, 1958). China was divided
into seven geographical zones: East China, Southern China, North China,
Central China, Southwest China, Northwest China and Northeast China.
In this study, a multivariate statistical analysis was conducted on the
ESPI and LDI and impacting factors in different regions using SPSS 25
software. The correlation using the Pearson correlation coefficients be-
tween LDI and GDP and per capita GDP, as well as ESPI and the propor-
tion of ecological land to total land area, average elevation, and the
average NDVI in each county, were calculated. A multi-regression anal-
ysis between the ESPI and LDI in each county in the seven zones was
conducted. Taking into account the comparison of mode accuracy, linear
regression models and nonlinear regression models were used to de-
velop the relationship models between ESPI and LDI. In this study, the
relationship models, including linear, logarithmic, inverse, quadratic,
cubic, exponential, logistic, etc. were analyzed and compared. The R
squared coefficient, and root mean square error (RMSE) value were
used as accuracy assessment indicators of the relationship models be-
tween ESPI and LDI in order to determine the models with higher
accuracy.
3. Results and discussion
3.1. Spatial imbalance in the supply and demand of ecosystem services
From Fig. 1, regions with high ESPI indicating a high supply of eco-
system services in 2015 were mainly distributed in the southern
(a)
Fig. 4. Original (a) and quadrant diagram (b) distribution of supply-demand patterns of ecosystem services in China in 2015.
785
regions, while there was a low ESPI in the northern regions, especially
in Northwestern China. The drought climate and fragile environment
led to the lower production capacity and biological diversity and the
weak self-regulation of ecosystems, resulting in the low ESPI and ex-
treme vulnerability of ecosystems in the northwest of China. Low ESPI
regions were also distributed in the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River
Delta and Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei due to the dense population and high
proportion of developed land. In contrast, regions with higher ESPI
were mainly located in the northeast and south of China, where nearly
70% of the counties are in the mountains concentrated among natural
forests. The distribution characteristics of high ecosystem service supply
were consistent with that of natural forests in China and NPP (Net Pri-
mary Productivity) (Chen et al., 2011). The result was also consistent
with that of Xie et al. (2015) which indicated that valuable areas of eco-
system services were mainly distributed in Southern China, Southwest
and Northeast China, as well as that the overall trend was gradually de-
creasing from the southeast to the northwest. The spatial differences in
the supply of ecosystem services in various regions have a close rela-
tionship with that of natural geographical conditions and social and eco-
nomic development in China (Chen et al., 2011; Wang et al., 2018a).
The distribution of population and regional economic development
was imbalanced in China and exhibited a gradually decreasing pattern
from east to west (Fig. 2). In mountainous regions and the western re-
gions, the level of economic development obviously lagged behind the
central and eastern regions, and there was a significant economic gap
in the eastern, central and western regions. The spatial pattern of popu-
lation aggregation and economic development reflected the differentia-
tion in the intensity of land development. The spatial distribution of the
proportion of developed land was consistent with that of population
density and economic density. The status of economic development
and population in different regions determined the differences in the
ecosystem services demand. The LDI in most parts of western and
northern China was at a lower level, indicating the relatively low de-
mand for ecosystem services. In contrast, regions with higher LDI were
mainly concentrated in the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta,
Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region and some dense urban areas, as well as
the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain.
Based on the quadrant diagram of the supply-demand of ecosystem
services, the matching supply-demand patterns of ecosystem services
were divided into four types: High supply-High demand (H-H), Low
supply-High demand (L-H), Low supply-Low demand (L-L), and High
supply-Low demand (H-L). As seen in Fig. 4, most counties belonged
(b)
786 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791
Table 1
Distributions of the proportion of land area, population and GDP in different supply-de-
mand patters of ecosystem services in China in 2015.
Type Area Population
High supply-High demand 0.28% 2.48%
Low supply-High demand 3.27% 28.95%
Low supply-Low demand 51.11% 24.23%
High supply-Low demand 45.34% 44.33%
to the L-H, L-L, and H-L patterns with the number of counties 682, 750
and 1402, respectively. The areas of the H\\H pattern only amounted
to 0.28% of the total area in China (Table 1).
The regions with the H-L pattern were mainly located in the grass-
land and forest regions in Northeast, Southwest and Southeast China,
where economic development has lagged behind and the degree of ur-
banization was low compared to other regions. In these regions, there
are intact natural ecosystems which are the biological gene pool of a
large number of rare species resources. In these regions with the H-L
pattern, the GDP accounted for 25.98% of China's total economy, and
the population accounted for 44.33% of the country's population. North-
east China is rich in forest resources, and its aggregate volume accounts
for about one-third of the country's total. As China's Northern Ecological
Barrier, the forest plays a significant role in conserving water sources,
maintaining water and soil, and improving the climate in small areas.
South China is characterized by high cover of shrubs and forests with
high biomass. Due to topography and difficulties for land development,
the decreased disturbance by human activities resulted in the higher
supply of ecosystem services. In the future, it is necessary to safeguard
the integrity of existing natural ecosystems, restore natural vegetation
in mountainous areas, strictly limit the expansion of land development
and prevent overgrazing.
The L-H pattern was mainly concentrated in developed regions, in-
cluding the Yangtze River Delta, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Pearl River
Delta, the Sichuan Basin, the Huang-Huai-Hai Plain, and some capital
cities and their surrounding areas such as Zhengzhou, Jinan, Wuhan,
Chengdu and others (Zhang et al., 2018). In these regions, which
accounted for 3.27% of the country's total land area, there was 28.95%
of the total population and 51.93% of the country's GDP in 2015. These
areas had a high population density, a high level of industrialization
and a high consumption of ecosystem services. Developed land for
urban use was one of the major land use types in these regions, where
human activities caused a great disturbance to natural ecosystems,
and problems in the ecological environment and human-land contra-
dictions were prominent. Additionally, there were few areas of ecologi-
cal land, such as woodland and grassland, and the supply capacity of
ecosystem services was weak. The imbalance between the supply and
demand of ecosystem services was significant. The acceleration of ur-
banization is bound to exacerbate the spatial imbalance in the ecosys-
tem services supply with human needs in these regions (Wang et al.,
2014). It is crucial to improve the capacity of ecological goods provision
and protect natural ecosystems strictly and effectively. In these regions
exhibiting the L-H pattern, the interference of human activities on the
ecosystem should be reduced to provide ecosystem services. Addition-
ally, urban green infrastructure should be developed, and the green
area of urban parks should be improved. Meanwhile, the expansion of
construction land in different areas should be controlled at intervals,
and the efficiency of land use should be improved.
Among the four types of patterns, the area of the L-L pattern was the
largest, which was mainly located in Northwestern China, part of the
Northeast China Plain, the North China Plain, the Sichuan Basin and
the Jianghan Plain. In these regions, the urbanization level was relatively
low due to low economic development, and the demand for ecosystem
services was also low. Most of the land types were deserts and gobi in
Northwest China, resulted in a weak supply capacity of ecosystem ser-
vices. Due to the unreasonable development in the plain area, a series
of ecological and environmental problems, such as water pollution,
soil erosion, and lake shrinkage, also seriously affected the supply of
ecosystem services. In the regions with the L-L pattern, the need to pro-
GDP tect natural areas, restore natural ecosystems, prohibit deforestation
2.65% and overgrazing, participate in land reclamation, and improve the sup-
51.93% ply of ecosystem services should be prioritized. In the above mentioned
19.43% plain area, there should be effective management of the land's ecologi-
25.98%
cal attributes, a change in the production mode of cultivated land, and
control of the unreasonable human activities. At the same time, the po-
tential of regional development should be exploited and the optimiza-
tion and upgrade of the regional industrial economic structure to the
ecological economy should be hastened in the above regions.
The total area with the H-H pattern was the least and was mainly lo-
cated in the upper reaches of the Huaihe River Basin and the north-
central region of Zhejiang Province. The social and economic develop-
ment in these regions was at moderately high speed, while there was
a good ecological background and high vegetation coverage. The advan-
tages of economic and ecological conditions should be maintained
through further alleviating human pressure on the ecosystem,
protecting urban green spaces, and adjusting the land use structure in
these regions.
3.2. Spatiotemporal changes in the supply-demand pattern of ecosystem
services
In this study, spatiotemporal changes in supply-demand patterns of
ecosystem services in China were assessed. The matching pattern of ESPI
and LDI in 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2015 are shown in Fig. 5.
Due to differences in technologies, means, data sources, and precision
between the first (1996) and the second (2009) national land surveys,
the analysis of spatial-temporal changes in the matching patterns of
ESPI and LDI was divided into two stages (2000–2008 and
2009–2015). In this study, the transformation matrix of the supply-
demand pattern for ecosystem services in each period was also analyzed
to understand how the supply-demand pattern changes from one pat-
tern to another in different time periods.
The results indicated that there were noticeable changes in the
matching pattern of ESPI and LDI in the two periods of 2000–2008 and
2009–2015 in China. The proportion of the L-L and L-H pattern de-
creased in 2000–2008, while there was a slight increase in 2009–2015.
The proportion of the H-L pattern increased greatly in 2000–2008, and
there was a slight decrease in 2009–2015. Meanwhile, the H-H pattern
changed insignificantly (Fig. 5 and Fig. 6).
During 2000–2008, the obvious transformations were from L-L to H-
L and from L-H to L-L, which accounted for 12.44% and 2.64% of the land
area, respectively (Table 2). Among them, the region changing from L-L
to H-L was mainly located in Northeast China, Southwest China, the
Yangtze River Basin, the Yellow River Basin and the Huaihe Basin. The
supply capacity of ecosystem services in these areas had been greatly
improved. This is attributed to the success of Grain for Green and natural
forest protection in the middle and upper reaches of Yangtze River and
the Yellow River. The ecological construction projects had basically re-
stored the forest ecosystem, greatly improved the ecological environ-
ment, and reduced the expansion of soil erosion (Wang et al., 2018a;
Wang et al., 2018c). A similar result by Zhang et al. (2014) indicated
that the vegetation cover has been restored in the upper reaches of
the Yangtze River and most parts of the Yellow River Basin. Meanwhile,
the positive changes in the supply-demand pattern in Northeast China
had a close relationship with the implementation of the Wetland Reserve
Construction Project and Water into Wetland Project. Areas of lake and
marsh wetlands were increased by 817.1 km2 and 1791.35 km2 be-
tween 2000 and 2007, respectively. The improvement of the wetland
environment had gradually restored and improved the ecological
goods supply and regulatory functions of wetland nature reserves.
Under the implementation of ecological protection policies, major na-
tional ecological construction projects in China had reversed the
 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791 787

Fig. 5. Distribution of supply-demand patters of ecosystem services in China in 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2012 and 2015. H-H: High supply-High demand; L-H: Low supply-High demand; L-
L: Low supply-Low demand; H-L: High supply-Low demand.

deterioration of the ecological environment and achieved significant
improvements (Li et al., 2016a). It was suggested that the effects of
these ecological construction projects and policies were already more
than that of land development on the ESPI in the above regions, despite
the negative relationship between LDI and ESPI. On the other hand, the
regions changing from L-H to L-L were mostly located in the North
China Plain. This was due to the rapid development of China in recent
decades and the growing regional economic level, which has led to a
significant difference in the level of demand for ecosystem services in
different regions. According to the results released by the National Bu-
reau of Statistics of China, China's Gini coefficient has been rising since
2000, reached a historical maximum of 0.491 in 2008, and declined
each year since 2009.
In the meantime, the results in 2009–2015 also indicated that there
were slight negative changes in the supply-demand pattern, with the
most obvious changes from H-L to L-L (Table 3). As seen from Fig. 5,
the transformations were mainly distributed in the third and fourth-
tier cities in China. A four trillion yuan investment by the Chinese
788 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791

Table 3
Transformation matrix of supply-demand patterns of ecosystem services in China from
2009 to 2015 (unit: %).

Year Type 2009 2009 2009 2009 Total

H-H L-H L-L H-L

2015 H-H 0.16 0.04 0.00 0.09 0.28

2015 L-H 0.22 2.64 0.30 0.10 3.27
2015 L-L 0.02 0.03 47.97 3.03 51.04
2015 H-L 0.00 0.02 0.17 45.22 45.41
Total 0.40 2.73 48.44 48.44 100.00
Changes 0.24 0.09 0.47 3.22 –

Notes: Bold numbers represent the proportions of supply-demand patterns without

change.

From Tables 2 and 3, and Fig. 6, it can be seen that the spatial imbal-
ance in the supply-demand pattern for ecosystem services gradually be-
came smaller in China. In general, regions with negative changes in the
supply-demand pattern decreased, such as from H-L to L-L, while posi-
tive changes increased, such as from L-L to H-L. The main causes of this
improvement included the intensification of the national ecological
construction projects and the improvement of ecosystem governance,
despite inconsistent rules and regulations of management and owner-
ship and conflicts between national policies on ecological preservation
and local economic development. China is still under pressure from
Fig. 6. Proportion of four types of supply-demand patterns of ecosystem services in China the acceleration of urbanization and ecological environment protection.
in 2000, 2005, 2008, 2009, 2012, and 2015. It is more prominent in the contradiction between economic develop-
ment and natural ecosystem protection. Intensifying environmental in-
government was used to boost domestic demand and ensure the eco- vestments and improving environmental governance could be arduous.
nomic growth due to the global economic crisis during 2008–2009.
However, the investment funds mainly flowed into the saturated indus- 3.3. Relationship between the supply and demand of ecosystem services
tries such as real estate, equipment manufacturing, steel, and nonfer-
rous metals and cement. This greatly increased China's consumption To deeply understand the interaction between land development
of various natural resources and caused serious air, water and soil pollu- and the supply of ecosystem services in the context of economic devel-
tion. China's recovery was based on the old growth model, which relied opment and urbanization drivers in different regions in China, the corre-
primarily on burgeoning investment in the short run (Lardy and lation analysis of impacting factors on ESPI was analyzed, and the
Subramanian, 2011). Some studies found that the fiscal stimulus plan relationship models between ESPI and LDI were established in seven
had raised the annual real GDP growth in China by approximately geographical zones. ESPI and LDI were standardized by means of stan-
3.2%, but only temporarily (Ouyang and Peng, 2015). Lu (2015) also dardization of the data range here. The correlation results showed that
found that the excess capacity and large amount of investment waste the proportion of ecological land to total land area was significantly cor-
had exceeded the environmental capacity, causing extensive damage related with the supply of ecosystem services, with correlation coeffi-
to the natural ecosystem and the decline in its stability and function. cients of greater than 0.5 in each region. NDVI and elevation were also
On the other hand, the Chinese government had suspended large- significantly correlated with the supply of ecosystem services in East
scale projects of Grain for Green to protect the red line of cultivated China, Central China and Southern China. The higher NDVI in terms of
land and ensure food security since 2008. This also had a negative im- dense vegetation, the greater the contribution to the ecosystem service
pact on vegetation restoration and ecological environment improve- provision. The decrease in impacts of human activities on the ecosystem
ment. Similarly, several studies reported that the four trillion yuan with the elevation in the mountainous regions could result in an in-
investment and real estate overdevelopment had significant negative crease in the supply of ecosystem services.
effects on natural ecosystem protection (Yao et al., 2014; He et al., Taking Central China as an example, Table 4 lists the linear, logarith-
2012; Lyu et al., 2016; Qing et al., 2015). In addition, similar results mic, inverse, quadratic, cubic, exponential, and logistic models of rela-
have indicated that the significant degradation of ecosystems mostly oc- tionship between ESPI and LDI. The results indicated that the linear,
curred in regions where land development was concentrated (Peng logarithmic, quadratic and cubic models had high R squared coefficients
et al., 2017; Wang et al., 2018a). and low root mean square error (RMSE) values at the significance level
of 0.001. The R squared coefficient was the highest of 0.762 for the cubic
Table 2
model. The cubic model was chosen as the relationship model between
Transformation matrix of supply-demand patterns of ecosystem services in China from the supply and demand of ecosystem services.
2000 to 2008 (unit: %). Fig. 7 shows the relationship between ESPI and LDI using the cubic
Year Type 2000 2000 2000 2000 Total
model in South China, North China, Northeast China, East China, Central
China and Southwest China. The results indicated that ESPI in most re-
H-H L-H L-L H-L
gions in 2015 were negatively correlated with LDI. The regions with
2008 H-H 0.06 0.24 0.01 0.00 0.30 high LDI reflected the rapid growth of economic development and in-
2008 L-H 0.16 2.08 0.23 0.25 2.72
tensive land use resulted in corresponding regions with low ESPI. More-
2008 L-L 0.12 2.64 52.08 0.80 55.64
2008 H-L 0.23 0.75 12.44 27.92 41.34 over, the results also indicated that there were regional differences in
Total 0.57 5.71 64.76 28.97 100.00 the relationships between the supply and demand of ecosystem ser-
Changes 0.51 3.63 12.68 1.05 – vices. With the increase in LDI, the rate of decrease of ESPI in East
Notes: Bold numbers represent the proportions of supply-demand patterns without China and South China was far more than that in North China and
change. Northeast China. The result also suggested that the rapid economic
 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791 789

Table 4
Relationship models between the LDI and ESPI in Central China.

Types Models Parameter estimates

R2 F df1 df2 Sig. Constant b1 b2 b3

Linear 0.655 726.490 1 382 0.000 0.390 −0.723

Logarithmic 0.758 1195.145 1 382 0.000 0.082 −0.079
Inverse 0.242 122.234 1 382 0.000 0.296 0.001
Quadratic 0.738 536.724 2 382 0.000 0.418 −1.328 1.160
Cubic 0.762 404.959 3 382 0.000 0.436 −1.918 3.812 −2.669

growth and the intensive land development in East China and South
China created a more significant decrease in ESPI than that in North
China and Northeast China. Especially in developed regions, land devel-
opment was the key impacting factor on the decrease in ESPI due to the
expansion of impervious surfaces in urban areas and the complexity of
urban ecosystems. In addition, the results showed that the overdevelop-
ment of real estate and the surplus of developed land for urban use
under the four trillion yuan investment resulted in a decrease of ESPI,
which also verified the negative relationship between LDI and ESPI. Sim-
ilar results have shown that the urban development and disturbance by
human activities in the Chinese urbanization process have resulted in a
decrease in the natural ecosystem and farmland in developed regions,
resulting in the reduction of biological production and vegetation and
the loss of irreplaceable ecological goods and services in China (Wang
et al., 2018a; Wang et al., 2018b). The result was also consistent with
the finding that the relationship between the ecosystem service and
the local economy was an inverse curve under restrained conditions
(Zhang et al., 2013). Land capitalization supported by the large-scale
land development through conversions of the natural ecosystem and
farmland to developed land use, which were uncoordinated and unsus-
tainable, has continued to play a significant role over the years.
It was noted there was no significant correlation between ESPI and
LDI in Northwest China. It was suggested that the special arid and semi-
arid ecosystems and relatively slow economic growth and complex so-
cial environment had significant negative impacts on land development
that resulted in a relatively low LDI. In addition, this was coupled with
factors such as an extensive distribution of low ESPI regions as well as
enormous national investments to ecological restoration and
agricultural land improvement to increase ESPI in Northwest region
could contribute to the complexity of the relationship between ESPI
and LDI.
In this study, LDI was employed to depict ecosystem service demand
only, which represented a spatial trend of consumption and preference
needs of human living and the production of ecosystem goods and ser-
vices. The matching analysis on ESPI and LDI only represented a relative
imbalance in spatial distribution, which enabled the rapid interpreta-
tion of changes in the supply-demand patterns of ecosystem services.
The available imbalance trends in the supply-demand pattern of ecosys-
tem services and its causes were analyzed. The above analysis was less
time consuming and more cost effective than detecting changes in abso-
lute values and material goods of ecosystem services using extensive
field observations. The analysis method is meaningful for the rapid
monitoring and management of the ecosystem under significant distur-
bance by human activities. In the meantime, the quantitative relation-
ships between the ecosystem services provision and land
development in different regions were explored. This was valuable for
the theoretical analysis on the regional effects of land development on
the ecosystem services provision and policy-making for sustainable
land utilization.
Nevertheless, there are also limitations in this study, and several
points warrant further discussion. For instance, some issues of measur-
ing the supply or demand of ecosystem services need to be deeply stud-
ied. The supply-demand situation of ecosystem services could be
affected by various factors, including physical geographical factors or
socioeconomic factors. There are considerable differences among differ-
ent regions. The analysis may tend to disproportionately estimate needs

Fig. 7. Relationships between the LDI and ESPI in different regions in China, simulated by cubic model.
790 J. Wang et al. / Science of the Total Environment 657 (2019) 781–791
of regional populations for ecosystem services. The supply-demand pat-
terns of ecosystem services should be studied using extensive case stud-
ies and field observation data in different regions to improve the
accuracy of the analysis. These should be identified in detail and mea-
sured accurately in future analyses of the supply-demand of ecosystem
services. In the meantime, changes in the spatial distributions of the
supply-demand patterns might be affected by the differences of land-
use data collection and the adjustment of administrative division in
the two periods related to the first and second land surveys. Thus, we
should be cautious when comparing the results of the two periods.
4. Conclusions
The prominent contradiction between economic development and
the ecological environment has become the greatest restriction hinder-
ing China's future development. To achieve sustainable economic and
social development, policymakers must infiltrate the concept of sustain-
able ecosystem management into specific policy-making processes. In
this study, the situation and spatiotemporal changes in the supply-
demand pattern of ecosystem services in China were analyzed, and
the relationship between supply and demand was explored from the
perspective of ecosystem services. The results showed that most regions
in China were in the L-L and H-L patterns for ecosystem services. How-
ever, there was nearly 28.95% of the total population and 51.93% of the
country's GDP in the L-H pattern in 2015, which accounted for only
3.27% of the total land area. The imbalance between the supply and de-
mand of ecosystem services was obvious in China. From 2000 to 2015,
the spatial imbalance in the supply-demand of ecosystem services was
shrinking, and regions with negative changes in supply-demand pat-
terns were declining while regions with positive changes were increas-
ing due to Grain for Green and ecological protection policies. Moreover,
the ESPI was negatively correlated with LDI in most regions, which is
depicted as cubic curves. There were regional differences in the relation-
ships between the supply and demand of ecosystem services. The land
development was the key impacting factor on the decrease in ESPI. Es-
pecially in the developed regions, the rapid economic growth and inten-
sive land development created a more significant decrease in ESPI than
that in North China and Northeast China.
This study was an important attempt to quantify the imbalance and
spatiotemporal changes in the supply-demand patterns of ecosystem
services. The studied results could contribute to sustainable ecosystem
management and decision-making for Chinese ecological protection
policies. However, the supply and demand of ecosystem services are af-
fected by multiple nonlinear factors in natural ecosystems and socioeco-
nomic systems. Moreover, the supply-demand spatial pattern of
ecosystem services was distributed unevenly and could result in envi-
ronmental injustice. In future analyses, the consideration of social and
environmental injustice should be integrated into the imbalance analy-
sis to account for the in-depth associations between the ecosystem ser-
vices provision and land development from the perspective of different
spatiotemporal scales, if more related data can be collected. The focus of
future studies could be on the interactive mechanisms and theoretical
modes of supply and demand of ecosystem services, and the integration
of social and environmental injustice dimensions into the imbalance
analysis.
The significant imbalance in supply-demand patterns of ecosystem
services occurred in developed regions, especially in urban agglomera-
tion areas. Sustainable urban ecosystem management is crucial to re-
lieve the dilemma between economic growth and ecosystem
protection. Future studies should also focus on spatial optimization
and the arrangement of urban ecological space from the perspective of
the goals of efficiency and social-environmental equity to improve eco-
system services capacities of urban ecosystems towards sustainable and
smart cities. This would require the emerging new forms data to be col-
lected by various sensors and information and communication
technologies.
Acknowledgements
The authors acknowledge financial support from the National Natu-
ral Science Foundation of China (41330750, 41871203) and the project
of high-level talents import plan in Wuhan University.
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