Exploring the impact of population agglomeration on ecosystem services: an empirical study based on Fenhe River Basin

• Published in: Environmental research letters 2024-11, Vol.19 (11), p.114080
• Main Authors: Li, Qiang, Cao, An, Shi, Xueyi, Zhao, Zhongqiu, Wu, Qingqing
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Agglomeration; Agricultural land; Economic development; Ecosystem services; Ecosystems; Gini; interaction effects; people withdrawing and vegetation entering; Population distribution; Population studies; Resource allocation; River basins; Rivers; trade-offs and synergies; Urbanization; Vegetation
• ISSN: 1748-9326; 1748-9326
• DOI: 10.1088/1748-9326/ad8368

Since the 21st century, cities have experienced rapid expansion, posing serious threats to the health of non-urban ecosystems. It is generally believed that continued urbanization will put increasing pressure on ecosystems. However, in recent decades, the degree of population agglomeration and ecological environment have simultaneously increased in China. This paper takes Fenhe River Basin as the study area, measures the spatial Gini coefficient of population distribution (Gini) and ecosystem services in 165 sub-basins from 2000 to 2020, and adopts two-way fixed effects model to study the impacts of population agglomeration on ecosystem services and its mechanism. The results show that population agglomeration is positively correlated with the overall benefit (OB) of ecosystem services, and the effect is moderated by vegetation coverage, slope and distance from market centre, only when the values are greater than 0.198, less than 6.62° and 17.90 km, respectively, will the positive effects become apparent. The phenomenon of ‘people withdrawing and vegetation entering’ makes population agglomeration have significant impacts on individual ecosystem services and trade-offs and synergies. In order to give better play to the positive effect, the population needs to migrate from areas with worse geographical conditions and farther away from market centres to better places, and the return of farmland to forests should be accelerated in areas with population concentration. Following the laws of nature to promote population agglomeration and vegetation restoration, so as to achieve a ‘win–win’ situation between economic development and ecological civilization construction through the optimization of resource allocation.