Estimation of the Ecosystem Service Value of the Yellow River Delta-Laizhou Bay Coastal Zone Considering Regional Differences and Social Development.

ABSTRACT

With economic and societal development, the ecological environment of the Yellow River Delta-Laizhou Bay coastal zone has been seriously damaged. Exploring the changes in land use and ecosystem service value (ESV) is essential to ecological construction of the region. The random forest classification method was used for land cover interpretation of the four periods of remote sensing images in the study area from 1990 to 2020. Newly calculated regional difference coefficients and social development coefficients were used to construct a dynamic ESV assessment model and to study its changes from overall and sea‒land gradient perspectives. The results showed that construction land, salt pans, aquaculture ponds, and inland water masses expanded rapidly, while cropland, tidal flats, and shallow waters shrank sharply over the past 30 years. The ESV in the study area has continued to decrease from 34.47 billion yuan in 1990 to 25.23 billion yuan in 2020, a total decrease of 9.23 billion yuan. This is mostly due to the encroachment of construction land, salt pans, and aquaculture ponds, and the flow of ecosystem services from high-value land cover types (tidal flats, herbaceous wetlands, and cropland) to medium- and low-value land cover types. Moreover, the land cover transfer and ESVs exhibited a decreasing trend from sea to land, with significant sea-land gradient differences. Land conversion is most common in the 0-15 km coastal zone, mainly from natural wetlands to artificial wetlands, where the ESV also decreases rapidly. Considering the regional differences and social development in this paper, the ESV of small-scale areas can be reasonably evaluated to explore the characteristics and causes of changes in land use and ESVs, which can provide an important reference for ecological protection and land use management in the region.