The relationship between basin urbanization and ecosystem services in China: a case study of Central China (CC) urban agglomeration

The rapid expansion of urban areas and intense human activities have exerted serious impacts on the structure and service functions of ecosystems. A clear understanding of the interaction between urbanization (UI) and ecosystem service (ES) is of great significance for formulating regulations of future urban development and environment protection. In this study, we analyzed the impacts of urbanization on ecosystem services from 2000 to 2020 in the Central China (CC) urban in China. The results show that the urbanization process in the CC evolves from a rapidly growing state to a steady state with a slower rise. The ESV in CC increased from 2.75 trillion yuan in 2000 to 5.07 trillion yuan in 2020. There is an inverted U-shaped curve relationship between UI and ESV, the ESV sharply decrease when the urbanization index exceeded 0.5. Land urbanization and social urbanization has the greatest impact on ESV. There was an spatial heterogeneity in the hotspots of ecosystem services. The hot spots of ecosystem products services are distributed in the northeast of the study area, while regulation services and cultural services are distributed in the southwest of CC. The results can provide insights for enhancing urban sustainability in the CC region, as well other urban megaregion with similar characteristics throughout the world.