Assessing ecosystem service dynamics in China's coastal shelterbelt: Implications for ecosystem restoration

Influenced by human activities and natural changes, the ecosystem services (ESs) of the Coastal Shelter Forest (CSF) have been substantially transformed. This transformation has reduced the stability of the regional ecosystem and decreased the level of human well-being, seriously affecting the lives of coastal communities. To enhance the benefits and maintain the ecological stability of coastal areas, rational planning of ESs within the Coastal Shelterbelt Program (CSP) is necessary. This planning aims to strengthen the construction of ESs in the CSF and improve the effectiveness of CSP implementation. This study examined the changes in ES levels and their interaction effects within the CSF at a finer pixel scale. It also adjusted the regional boundaries for policy optimization based on ES clustering characteristics, investigated the state of ESs and their driving mechanisms in subregions, and supplemented policy optimization for the CSF based on the ESs information from these subregions. The findings indicate a notable increase of approximately 12.91%-212% in ESs from 2001 to 2020, primarily in the Bohai Bay Coastal Region (BBCR) and Yangtze River Delta Coastal Region (YRDCR). The fluctuating hotspot areas of ESs coincided with substantial changes in forest land within these regions. Additionally, the study observed that the synergies among carbon sequestration (CS), soil conservation (SC), and water conservation (WC) decreased by 12.83% to 114.74% during the pre-phase III of CSP. The proportion experiencing area of the trade-offs between CS and WC/SC increased from 69.36% to 72.57% in the Southeast Coastal Region (SECR), where the effectiveness of forest land policy planning weakened and the conflicts among service relationships intensified. Furthermore, the influence of drivers showed distinct regional traits, with precipitation (PRE) and temperature (TMP) as the main drivers in zones A and E, and the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and digital elevation model (DEM) as the main drivers in zones B, C, and D. To enhance the CSF, the study suggests implementing optimized planting, improving soil and region-specific forest land protection schemes, all aligned with the unique ecological requirements of each cluster zone. This study adds to existing research on the effectiveness of ecological construction of the CSF and provides additional reference data for policy optimization related to these issues.