Ecosystem services trade-offs and synergies in China, 2000–2015

Terrestrial ecosystem services have experienced evident decline in the past decades. Trade-offs and synergies in ecosystem services have been widely studied to understand the disturbance of human activities on ecosystems. However, the method for ecosystem services assessment remains incomplete, and a few studies of the trade-off analysis of ecosystem services have been conducted at the national scale. In this study, we conducted trade-off analysis of China’s ecosystem services—including supplying, regulating, supporting, and cultural services—using a newly revised benefit transfer method and the bivariate Moran’s I method during 2000–2015. We found an overall increasing tendency in ecosystem services value when comparing to the findings from previous studies. Synergy was the dominant relationship among the ecosystem services in China, but it varied spatially. The findings in this study have important implications for ecosystem services management in China and for ecosystem services value assessment in other regions.