Integrating the effects of driving forces on ecosystem services into ecological management: A case study from Sichuan Province, China

Driving forces are the factors that lead to the observed changes in the quantity and quality of ecosystem services (ESs). The relationship between driving forces and ESs involves considerable scale-related information. Place-based ecological management requires this information to support local sustainable development. Despite the importance of scale in ES research, most studies have only examined the association between ESs and their drivers at a single level, and few studies have examined this relationship at various scales or analyzed spatial heterogeneity. The purpose of this paper is to explore the significance of the scale-dependent effects of drivers on ESs for localized ecological management. The biophysical values of ESs were calculated using several ecological simulation models. The effects of driving forces on ESs were explored using the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model. Variations in the effects of driving forces on ESs were examined at three scales: provincial, ecoregional, and subecoregional scales. Finally, canonical correlation analysis was used to identify the major environmental factors associated with these variations in each ecoregion. Our results show that (1) the distribution of soil conservation and water yield is highly heterogeneous; (2) four driving forces have significant positive and negative impacts on soil conservation and water yield, and their effects on the two services vary spatially (p < 0.05); (3) the impacts of drivers on ESs vary across different spatial scales, with a corresponding shift in the related environmental factors; and (4) in the study area, at the provincial scale, physical, topographical, and biophysical factors were key factors associated with the variations in the relationship between ESs and drivers, and at the ecoregional and subecoregional scales, physical, socioeconomic, topographical, and biophysical factors all contributed to these changes. Our results suggest that significant differences in topographical conditions (e.g., altitude, slope) can be incorporated for exploring the relationship between drivers and ESs and optimizing ecological management at the provincial scale, whereas significant differences in physical and socioeconomic conditions (e.g., urbanization levels, human activity, vegetation coverage) are more meaningful for localized ecological management at the ecoregional and subecological scales. These findings provide a basis for understanding the relationship between drivers and ESs at multiple scales as well as guidelines for improving localized ecological management and achieving sustainable development.