Regional Forest Ecosystem Service And Function System And Its Application

Forests can provide various ecosystem services such as water conservation,carbon fixation,oxygen release,and species conservation,which play an irreplaceable role in supporting the survival and development of mankind.With appropriate forest restoration measures,we can effectively improve the values of forest ecosystems services.In order to support for forest restoration and ecological compensation,there is a critical need to evaluate changes of regional forest ecosystem services in a scientific and efficient way.Due to the complexity of regional forest ecosystems,the spatiotemporal variability of forest ecological functions,and the diversity of forest restoration measures,current models and forest ecosystem services assessment tools fail to meet the needs of the evaluation of forest ecosystem restoration practices in a changing environment.Therefore,it is necessary to develop a new assessment tool to evaluate changes in regional forest ecosystem services under different scenarios of forest restoration measures,which can provide critical scientific support for policymakers to guide forest ecological protection and restoration.This paper mainly covers the following aspects:(1)Firstly,the evaluation methods of forest ecosystem services were investigated,and three major forest ecosystem services including water conservation,carbon fixation and oxygen release,and species conservation,were then selected as the evaluation indicators.Changes in regional forest ecosystem services were eventually be evaluated by combining the functional-value-method and ecological models.(2)According to the system requirements from forestry departments,we designed and developed an GIS-based evaluation system of regional forest ecosystem services by use of Visual Studio 2010,C#.NET and Arc Engine 10.2.This system consists of modules including data management,data processing,landscape pattern calculation,restoration measures layout,and forest ecosystem services assessment.(3)In order to verify the applicability,reliability and stability of the system,it was applied to the Zagunao watershed located in the upper reaches of the Minjiang River,based on spatial data(e.g.,precipitation data,temperature data,topographic data)and non-spatial data(e.g.,calculation parameters of carbon fixation and oxygen release,and forest restoration measures).(4)According to the application results,the value of forest ecosystem services in the Zagunao watershed in 2010 was 31.767 billion yuan,of which the value of carbon fixation and oxygen release(19.438 billion yuan)was greater than the value of water conservation(9.507 billion yuan)and the value of species conservation(2.822 billion yuan).After the implementation of the restoration measures,the value of forest ecosystem services in 2020 was increased to 32.453 billion yuan,with an increment of686 million yuan(2.16%)compared to 2010.This result is basically consistent with the findings in similar regions,and carbon fixation and oxygen release and water conservation are the major contributors of forest ecosystem services.In general,the system demonstrates great applicability which can be a useful tool to support forestry department in decision-making regarding forest management and development plan.