Abstract
Understanding the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods is a prerequisite for poverty eradication and ecological protection in China. In this paper, we intended to quantify the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods in 717 poverty-stricken counties in China. First, we identified distinct levels of ecosystem services and poverty respectively in the poverty-stricken areas based on the ecosystem services subsystem index and poverty livelihoods subsystem index. Then, we calculated the coupling degree and coupling coordination degree between the ecosystem services and the poverty livelihoods in China’s poverty-stricken counties from 2000 to 2015. Finally, we analyzed the temporal and spatial evolution of the coupling between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods. The results indicate that the ecosystem services showed a trend of first decreasing and then increasing, while the poverty level showed an increased trend. In addition, the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods in poverty-stricken counties was also improved from 2000 to 2015. However, the coupling degree value or coupling coordination degree values in some counties or contiguous impoverished areas showed a decreased trend, the coupling relationship between ecosystem services and poverty livelihoods in those counties or areas was higher conflict. Future more, the coupling relationship in China’s poverty-stricken counties was mainly intermediate conflict and low conflict, which need to improve in the future. Thus, it is suggested that effective measures are required to lift ecosystem services out of the poverty trap and into sustainable livelihoods.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Ai B, Ma C, Zhao J, Zhang R (2020). The impact of rapid urban expansion on coastal mangroves: a case study in Guangdong Province, China. Front Earth Sci, 14(1): 37–19
Akwetaireho S, Getzner M (2010). Livelihood dependence on ecosystem services of local residents: a case study from Mabamba Bay wetlands (Lake Victoria, Uganda). Int J Biodivers Sci Ecosyst Serv Manag, 6(1–2): 75–87
Auler A C, Galetto S L, Hennipman F S, Guntzel E D, Giarola N F, Fonseca A F (2017). Soil structural quality degradation by the increase in grazing intensity in integrated crop-livestock system. Bragantia, 76(4): 550–556
Berchoux T, Watmough G R, Hutton C, Atkinson P M (2019). Agricultural shocks and drivers of livelihood precariousness across indian rural communities. Landsc Urban Plan, 189: 307–319
Chambers R, Conway G R (1991). Sustainable rural livelihoods: practical concepts for the 21st Century. Brighton, Institute of Development Studies 296
Chen Y, Ge Y (2015). Spatial point pattern analysis on the villages in China’s poverty-stricken areas. Procedia Environ Sci, 27: 98–105
Costanza R, d’Arge R, de Groot R, Farber S, Grasso M, Hannon B, Limburg K, Naeem S, O’Neill R V, Paruelo J, Raskin R G, Sutton P, van den Belt M (1997). The value of the world’s ecosystem services and natural capital. Nature, 387(6630): 253–260
Costanza R, de Groot R, Braat L, Kubiszewski I, Fioramonti L, Sutton P, Farber S, Grasso M (2017). Twenty years of ecosystem services: how far have we come and how far do we still need to go? Ecosyst Serv, 28: 1–16
Cuni-Sanchez A, Ngute A S, Sonké B, Sainge M, Burgess N, Klein J, Marchant R (2019). The importance of livelihood strategy and ethnicity in forest ecosystem services’ perceptions by local communities in north-western Cameroon. Ecosyst Serv, 40: 101000
D’Amato D, Rekola M, Wan M, Cai D, Toppinen A (2017). Effects of industrial plantations on ecosystem services and livelihoods: perspectives of rural communities in China. Land Use Policy, 63: 266–278
Daily G C (1997). Nature’s Services: Societal Dependence on Natural Ecosystems. Washington DC: Island Press
Daw T, Brown K, Rosendo S, Pomeroy R, Brockington D (2011). Applying the ecosystem services concept to poverty alleviation: the need to disaggregate human well-being. Environ Conserv, 38(4): 370–379
Elvidge C D, Sutton P C, Ghosh T, Tuttle B T, Baugh K E, Bhaduri B, Bright E (2009). A global poverty map derived from satellite data. Comput and Geosci, 35: 1652–1660
Fisher J A, Patenaude G, Giri K, Lewis K, Meir P, Pinho P, Rounsevell M D A, Williams M (2014). Understanding the relationships between ecosystem services and poverty alleviation: a conceptual framework. Ecosyst Serv, 7: 34–45
Gong Q, Zhang J (2007). Relations between agricultural natural disasters and rural poverty based on analysis of panel data in Anhui Province, China. Chinese J Population Resour Environ, 17: 92–95
Gregory P J, Johnson S N, Newton A C, Ingram J S I (2009). Integrating pests and pathogens into the climate change/food security debate. J Exp Bot, 60(10): 2827–2838
Heilig G K, Zhang M, Long H, Li X, Wu X (2006). Poverty alleviation in China: a lesson for the developing world? Geogr Rundsch, 2: 4–13
Homewood K, Schreckenberg K (2018). Sharing data from the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme. Sci Data, 5(1): 180137
Hu X, Zhang H, Hao H, Feng D, Liu H, Zhang Q (2020). Understanding the relationships between poverty alleviation and ecosystem conservation: empirical evidence from western China. Front Earth Sci, 14(1): 209–220
Huq N, Pedroso R, Bruns A, Ribbe L, Huq S (2020). Changing dynamics of livelihood dependence on ecosystem services at temporal and spatial scales: an assessment in the southern wetland areas of Bangladesh. Ecol Indic, 110: 105855
Ibáñez J, Martínez J, Schnabel S (2007). Desertification due to overgrazing in a dynamic commercial livestock-grass-soil system. Ecol Modelling, 205: 277–288
Illingworth V (1996). The Penguin dictionary of physics. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press
Jogo W, Hassan R (2010). Determinants of rural household labour allocation for wetland and other livelihood activities: the case of the Limpopo wetland in Southern Africa. Agrekon, 49(2): 195–216
Kalaba F K, Quinn C H, Dougill A J (2013). Contribution of forest provisioning ecosystem services to rural livelihoods in the Miombo woodlands of Zambia. Popul Environ, 35(2): 159–182
Khan S R, Khan S R (2009). Assessing poverty-deforestation links: evidence from Swat, Pakistan. Ecol Econ, 68(10): 2607–2618
Kumar H, Pandey B W, Anand S (2019). Analyzing the impacts of forest ecosystem services on livelihood security and sustainability: a case study of Jim Corbett National Park in Uttarakhand. International Journal of Geoheritage and Parks, 7(2): 45–55
Li C, Li S, Feldman M W, Li J, Zheng H, Daily G C (2018). The impact on rural livelihoods and ecosystem services of a major relocation and settlement program: a case in Shaanxi, China. Ambio, 47(2): 245–259
Li Y, Li Y, Zhou Y, Shi Y, Zhu X (2012). Investigation of a coupling model of coordination between urbanization and the environment. Journal of Environmental Management, 98: 127–133
Li Y, Su B, Liu Y (2016). Realizing targeted poverty alleviation in China: People’s voices, implementation challenges and policy implications. China Agric Econ Rev, 8(3): 443–454
Liu N, Liu C, Xia Y, Da B (2018). Examining the coordination between urbanization and eco-environment using coupling and spatial analyses: a case study in China. Ecol Indic, 93: 1163–1175
Liu Y, Liu J, Zhou Y (2017). Spatio-temporal patterns of rural poverty in china and targeted poverty alleviation strategies. J Rural Stud, 52: 66–75
Ma L, Jin F, Song Z, Liu Y (2013). Spatial coupling analysis of regional economic development and environmental pollution in China. J Geogr Sci, 23(3): 525–537
Meehan M C (1969). General system theory: foundations, development, applications. JAMA, 208(5): 870
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (EMA) (2005). Ecosystems and Human Well-being: Synthesis. World Resources Institute, Washington DC
Ouyang Z, Zheng H, Xiao Y, Polasky S, Liu J, Xu W, Wang Q, Zhang L, Xiao Y, Rao E, Jiang L, Lu F, Wang X, Yang G, Gong S, Wu B, Zeng Y, Yang W, Daily G C (2016). Improvements in ecosystem services from investments in natural capital. Science, 352(6292): 1455–1459
Parton W J, Scurlock J M O, Ojima D S, Schimel D S, Hall D O, Members S G (1995). Impact of climate change on grassland production and soil carbon worldwide. Glob Change Biol, 1(1): 13–22
Quine T A, Walling D E (1993). Assessing recent rates of soil loss from areas of arable cultivation in the UK. Farm Land Erosion: 357–371
Reed J, Van Vianen J, Foli S, Clendenning J, Yang K, MacDonald M, Petrokofsky G, Padoch C, Sunderland T (2017). Trees for life: the ecosystem service contribution of trees to food production and livelihoods in the tropics. For Policy Econ, 84: 62–71
Ren Z, Ge Y, Wang J, Mao J, Zhang Q (2017). Understanding the inconsistent relationships between socioeconomic factors and poverty incidence across contiguous poverty-stricken regions in China: multilevel modelling. Spat Stat, 21: 406–420
Robinson B E, Zheng H, Peng W (2019). Disaggregating livelihood dependence on ecosystem services to inform land management. Ecosyst Serv, 36: 100902
Saaty T L (1980). The Analytic Hierarchy Process: Planning, Priority Setting, Resource Allocation. New York: McGraw
Saaty T L (2003). Decision-making with the AHP: why is the principal eigenvector necessary. Eur J Oper Res, 145(1): 85–91
Saha D, Sundriyal R C (2012). Utilization of non-timber forest products in humid tropics: implications for management and livelihood. For Policy Econ, 14(1): 28–40
Sen G (1999). Engendering poverty alleviation: challenges and opportunities. Dev Change, 30(3): 685–692
Shaffer P (2013). Poverty and development in China: alternative approaches to poverty assessment. J Dev Stud, 49(7): 1030–1031
Shemshadi A, Shirazi H, Toreihi M, Tarokh M J (2011). A fuzzy VIKOR method for supplier selection based on entropy measure for objective weighting. Expert Syst Appl, 38(10): 12160–12167
Song C, Chen Z, Zhai W (2015). Analysis of sequential characteristic of coupling coordination degree between urbanization and resources-environment in Hubei Province. Adv Mat Res, 1073–1076: 1380–1386
Sumner A (2012). Where do the poor live? World Dev. 40(5): 865–877
Sun Y, Liu S, Dong Y, An Y, Shi F, Dong S, Liu G (2019). Spatiotemporal evolution scenarios and the coupling analysis of ecosystem services with land use change in China. Sci Total Environ, 681: 211–225
Tao J, Zhang Y, Dong J, Fu Y, Zhu J, Zhang G, Jiang Y, Tian L, Zhang X, Zhang T, Xi Y (2015). Elevation-dependent relationships between climate change and grassland vegetation variation across the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Int J Climatol, 35(7): 1638–1647
The Development for International Development (1999). Sustainable livelihoods guidance sheets. London: DFID
The Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme (2018). An environment for wellbeing: pathways out of poverty. In: Policy messages from the ESPA Programme
The State Council Information Office, PRC. (2016). China’s Progress in Poverty Reduction and Human Rights. Human Rights, 15: 625–627
Wang C, Pang W, Hong J (2017). Impact of a regional payment for ecosystem service program on the livelihoods of different rural households. J Clean Prod, 164: 1058–1067
Wang J (2010). Sustainable development, poverty reduction, and infrastructure in western China. Chin Econ, 43(3): 6–30
Wang S, Ma H, Zhao Y (2014). Exploring the relationship between urbanization and the eco-environment—a case study of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. Ecol Indic, 45: 171–183
Xiong W, Lin E, Ju H, Xu Y (2007). Climate change and critical thresholds in China’s food security. Clim Change, 81(2): 205–221
Yang W, Dietz T, Liu W, Luo J, Liu J (2013). Going beyond the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: an index system of human dependence on ecosystem services. PLoS One, 8(5): e64581
Yu X, Li Y, Xi M, Kong F, Pang M, Yu Z (2019). Ecological vulnerability analysis of Beidagang National Park, China. Front Earth Sci, 13(2): 385–397
Zhang J, Iwaasa A D, Han G, Gu C, Wang H, Jefferson P G, Kusler J (2018). Utilizing a multi-index decision analysis method to overall assess forage yield and quality of C3 grasses in the western Canadian prairies. Field Crops Res, 222: 12–25
Zhang L, Zhang Y, Yan J, Wu Y (2008). Livelihood diversification and cropland use pattern in agro-pastoral mountainous region of eastern Tibetan Plateau. J Geogr Sci, 18(4): 499–509
Zhang Z, Xia F, Yang D, Huo J, Wang G, Chen H (2020). Spatiotemporal characteristics in ecosystem service value and its interaction with human activities in Xinjiang, China. Ecol Indic
Zhao Y, Wang S, Ge Y, Liu Q, Liu X (2017). The spatial differentiation of the coupling relationship between urbanization and the eco-environment in countries globally: a comprehensive assessment. Ecol Modell, 360: 313–327
Zhao Y, Wang S, Zhou C (2016). Understanding the relation between urbanization and the eco-environment in China’s Yangtze River Delta using an improved EKC model and coupling analysis. Sci Total Environ, 571: 862–875
Zhen J (2015). Analysis on coupling relations between industrialization and ecological environmental in Inner Mongolia. App Mechanics and Mater, 3817: 989–993
Zhou Y, Li N, Wu W, Liu H, Wang L, Liu G, Wu J (2014). Socioeconomic development and the impact of natural disasters: some empirical evidences from China. Nat Hazards, 74(2): 541–554
Zhou D, Xu J, Lin Z (2017). Conflict or coordination? Assessing land use multi-functionalization using production-living-ecology analysis. Sci Total Environ, 577: 136–147
Zhou L, Guan D, Yuan X (2018a). Coupling correlation analysis of ecosystem services and livelihoods in the perspective of targeted poverty alleviation. Acta Ecological Sinica, 38(18): 6391–6401 (in Chinese)
Zhou Y, Guo Y, Liu Y, Wu W, Li Y (2018b). Targeted poverty alleviation and land policy innovation: Some practice and policy implications from China. Land Use Policy, 74: 53–65
Acknowledgements
This work is partially supported by the Science and Technology Research Program of Chongqing Municipal Education Commission (No. KJZD-K201800702), Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing in China (No. cstc2020jcyj-jqX0004), Late Project of National Social Science Foundation in China (No. 20FJYB035), the Ministry of education of Humanities and Social Science project (No. 20YJA790016) and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (No. 2018CDYJSY0055).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Lilei ZHOU is a Ph.D candidate at the Chongqing University and his major is ecology. His research interest is the ecosystem services of wetland.
Dongjie GUAN is a professor at the Chongqing Jiaotong University. She received her BS degree in human geography from the Chongqing Normal University in 2007, and her Ph.D degree in environmental engineering from the University of Kitakyushu in 2009. Her current research interests include ecology and environmental science.
Xingzhong YUAN is a professor at the Chongqing University. He received his BS degree in animal ecology from the Shandong Normal University in 1988, and his Ph.D degree in ecology from the East China University in 2001. His current research interests include ecosystem design, wetland ecology and ecological engineering.
Mengjie ZHANG is a Ph.D candidate at the Chongqing University and her major is ecology. Her research interest is wetland ecology.
Weijun GAO is a professor at the University of Kitakyushu, academician of the Japanese Academy of Engineering. He received his BS degree in building environment from the Zhejiang University in 1987, and his Ph.D degree in urban environment from the Waseda University in 1996. His current research interests include distributed energy, energy consumption and environmental load, and resource consumption in the life cycle of circular residences.
Electronic supplementary material
11707_2020_832_MOESM1_ESM.xlsx
Quantifying the spatiotemporal characteristics of ecosystem services and livelihoods in China’s poverty-stricken counties
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhou, L., Guan, D., Yuan, X. et al. Quantifying the spatiotemporal characteristics of ecosystem services and livelihoods in China’s poverty-stricken counties. Front. Earth Sci. 15, 553–579 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-020-0832-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-020-0832-2