Exploring the impacts of ecosystem services on human well-being in Qinghai Province under the framework of the sustainable development goals

Ecosystem services (ESs) play vital roles in meeting the needs of human well-being and supporting sustainable development. However, there is limited research on how the types, amounts, interactions, and changes of the ESs collectively impact human well-being under the context of sustainable development goals (SDGs) of the United Nations. This study selected Qinghai Province of China as the study area and intended to make such an attempt to fill this gap in terms of the following aspects: (1) analyzing the spatial patterns and changing trends of ten ESs (food supply, water supply, carbon sink, soil retention, sand fixation, hydrological regulation, flood mitigation, cultural service,net primary productivity, and habitat quality) in Qinghai Province from 2000 to 2018; (2) constructing a multi-level index system of human well-being under the framework of the SDGs, and setting the criteria to assess the level of local human well-being; and (3) building a structural equation model to explore the direct and indirect impacts of the types, amounts, interactions and changes of the ESs on actual human well-being and the gaps between actual and targeted human well-being. The findings revealed that: (1) most of the ecosystem services fluctuated with significant downward or upward trends during 2000-2018, except for four ESs (i.e., carbon sink, soil retention, flood mitigation, and habitat quality); (2) only a few indicators of local residents' well-being such as meat production, milk production, the numbers of medical technical personnel in hospitals and health centers, and the numbers of scientific and technical personnel met the SDG criteria in most time, while other indicators remained at low levels and there were large gaps between them and the SDG criteria; (3) actual human well-being and the gaps between actual and targeted human well-being were affected by the types, amounts, interactions and changes of the ESs with different degrees directly or indirectly. The approaches and results in this study are instructive for other regions of the world to make certain the roles of ESs in promoting human well-being and substantiating the SDGs.