Identification of the geographical factors influencing the relationships between ecosystem services in the Belt and Road region from 2010 to 2030

The understanding of the local spatiotemporal characteristics of the relationships among ecosystem services provides an ecological basis for regional sustainable ecosystem management. However, the geographical factors that influence the different changing relationships among the ecosystem services remain unclear, especially for continent-scale future scenarios. In this study, five ecosystem services (ESs) (habitat quality (HQ), soil retention (SR), water yield (WY), crop production (CP) and carbon sequestration (CS)) were measured in the “Belt and Road” region from 2010 to 2030. We qualified the trade-off and synergy among the ESs using Pearson correlations in different ecoregions, at different altitudes and for different population levels. Our results showed that CP exhibited a trade-off with HQ and SR, whereas the relationships among the other ESs were synergistic. Under the RCP4.5 scenario, the synergies between CP and CS and between CP and WY were the strongest, while the trade-offs between CP and SR and between CP and HQ were the strongest under RCP8.5. The relationship of the ecosystem services corresponded well with the regional climate, altitude and population, and the responses of the relationships among ESs to population sizes were the most obvious. This study contributes to investigating the influence of the driving factors on the relationships among ESs under multiple scenarios at the continental scale and could provide credible associations for future land use management and economic development in various countries, as well as promoting construction of a “green Belt and Road”.