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A Review of Ecosystem Services Research Focusing on China against the Background of Urbanization

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(14), 8271; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19148271

by Qindong Fan

, Xiaoyu Yang^* and Chenming Zhang

Reviewer 1:

Corrado Zoppi

Reviewer 2:

Lidia Mierzejewska

Int. J. Environ. Res. Public Health 2022, 19(14), 8271; https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19148271

Submission received: 21 June 2022 / Revised: 4 July 2022 / Accepted: 4 July 2022 / Published: 6 July 2022

(This article belongs to the Section Mental Health)

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Recently, I reviewed twice the submitted manuscript and, after the second round, my suggestion was: “reject”.

I think that it is worth quoting here the two refereeing report I wrote as regards the previous versions of the study.

FIRST REVIEW.

The issue discussed in the submitted manuscript is quite relevant as regards the impacts of urban developments on wetlands. The study defines and implements a methodology which identifies the economic value of wetlands. The methodological approach is implemented with reference to the Valle del Cauca e to the city of Cali, located in Colombia.

In my opinion the following points should be carefully addressed by the authors before the submitted manuscript is accepted for publication.

i. Section 2. “Materials and methods.” Since the authors claim that “The methodology includes benefit transfer (BT) method with geographical information system (GIS) and an exploratory governance analysis. Because there are few studies on the economic valuation of urban wetlands in Latin America, we present a methodology of interest, which can be easily replicated in other cities of this sub-continent.” (Abstract), I would recommend the authors discuss the value added provided by their study (steps 1 through 6, Figure 1) with respect to other studies which implement methodological approaches similar to theirs in order to assess the economic value of urban wetlands located in non-developing and developing countries urban environments. In particular, steps 2 and 3 seem rather questionable as regards the use of values taken from the ESVD with reference to the TEEB classification.

ii. Subsection 2.1. “Study area.” Since the authors claim that “There is a need to quantify the benefits of wetlands in developing countries and urban areas, where the growth of cities is fastest. This is the first valuation study of urban and peri-urban wetlands in Colombia” (Abstract), I would recommend the authors describe what makes peculiar the scientific and technical issue of the assessment of the benefits from wetlands as regards urban contexts located in the Valle del Cauca region with respect to other urban environments of developing and non-developing countries, and what makes Cali and the Valle del Cauca relevant within urban contexts of developing countries. This would clarify why the submitted study is of interest to the readers of Sustainability.

iii. Section 4. “Discussion.” I would recommend the authors add a detailed comparative assessment of differences and analogies between the results of their study and the outcomes of other studies, related to developing and non-developing countries urban contexts, which implemented a methodology similar to theirs. By doing so, the authors would make the reader aware of the value added of the submitted manuscript in the context of the current scientific and technical debate on the assessment of the economic value of urban wetlands. This could be done by expanding and developing in a more detailed way the discussion proposed in subsections 4.1 and 4.2.

iv. Section 5 “Conclusions.” The authors claim that “The implications in terms of public policies are directed at the need to design dynamic institutions that allow for better coordination between environmental regulations, the Land Management Plan and the social-ecological system of the city. This requires governance built on an understanding of the benefits provided by wetlands, that puts the needs of all users before particular short-run interests” (lines 514-518). I would recommend the authors describe in some detail a few examples concerning the issue of coordination at stake (environmental rules, land use plans and socio-economic management). Moreover, I would recommend the authors make the reader aware of what makes the Cali city and the Valle del Cauca wetlands peculiar among developing countries urban contexts from the coordination standpoint.

v. There are typos here and there, so I would recommend a complete revision of the text.

SECOND REVIEW.

In my opinion, the resubmitted manuscript still shows all the caveats which were highlighted in the first place. As a consequence, I would suggest IJERPH reject the study.

THIRD REVIEW.

Now, a third and largely revised version, has been submitted and I see that the authors appropriately addressed the points I raised in the first place. That being so, I would suggest IJERPH accept the submitted manuscript in its present form.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

After the changes made by the Author(s), the text has certainly gained in clarity and coherence. The plot is clear and comprehensible to the reader. The logical and substantive quality of the text has improved.

Despite the changes, however, it is not free of shortcomings that require consideration and minor corrections. Their list is given below:

- Add what keywords were used in the international perspective of research on „3. Research on different types of ecosystem services under the background of urbanization”

- In the context of the sentences "due to the slower urbanization process and limited scientific research level [24-25]" (p. 3) and "the number of high- level papers published in the United States is relatively large" (p. 3), the question arises as to how the level of papers was studied?

- at the conclusion "... urbanization is currently the most important driving force of global land use change" (p. 4) there is no citation or link study results to support this conclusion,

- It is worth clarifying whether or not studies in the international perspective also include China,

- at p. 5 - it says "the number of studies on ecosystem services is closely 162 related to the level of urbanization." - however, the results of the relationship between the number of papers and the level of urbanization of each country (including regions in the case of China - Section 4.2.) are missing,

- Fig. 4, 6, 7 should be in the form of a cartodiagram, not a diagram (the data in the figure are not relativized). Fig. 5 in the legend refers to "number of ecosystem services", while it is rather about the number of works in this topic,

- p. 9 - wrong reference to the figure (it is to 7, it should be to 8),

- In section "4.1 The international perspective" there is no analysis of the relationship with the level of urbanization (such an analysis takes place in section "4.2 China's perspective"),

- In the sentence "while international trade-off studies, especially developed countries, seldom include provisioning services [55-56, 17]" (p. 10) it is worth adding what is usually studied in an international perspective.

- The sentence "the maintenance or degradation of ecosystem services will also affect the sustainable development of urbanization, and even slow down or inhibit the urbanization process [60-61]" is questionable. (p. 11) - clarification is needed as to how the degradation of ecosystems can slow down urbanization processes,

- The conclusion that "the development of urbanization cannot be at the expense of reducing rural ecosystem services." (p. 12) sounds like wishful thinking. I guess there can be no development of urbanization without expansion into rural areas, which will always result in landscape change and reduction of ecosystem services.

With these minor changes, the text will be suitable for publication.

Author Response

Please see the attachment

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

In this essay, the authors implement a comprehensive literature review concerning the impact of urbanization processes on the supply of ecosystem services. Moreover, they analyze the state of the art of scientific and technical research concerning the relation between city and metropolitan expansion, and the provision of ecosystem services, and the debate on how to balance and make consistent with each other urban development conservation and enhancement of the condition and supply of ecosystem services. The state of the art and discussion concerning this topic is implemented through the assessment of the 2000-2022 literature available in the WOS and in the China National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI).
In my opinion, the manuscript should not be accepted for publication in its present form.
In a deeply revised version of the study, the authors should carefully address the following points.
i. I would recommend the authors clarify the reasons they analyze and, in some way, compare the scientific and technical debate, trends and perspectives concerning the issue at stake as regards China and the rest of the world. In other words, why are China and the rest of the world the two subjects investigated by the submitted study? I would recommend the authors address this point in order to explain why their study is interesting and relevant for the readers of IJERPH.
ii. The study suffers from a comprehensive lack of conceptualization. I would recommend the authors discuss in depth the following conceptual categories on which a large part of the submitted manuscript is based upon:
1) In general: urbanization and ecosystem services;
2) Subsection 2.3 “Research trends:” landscape pattern; static quantitative evaluation, dynamic simulation and prediction research; simple ecosystem service assessment to model research, multi-scenario simulation and multi-objective optimization;
3) Subsection 2.3 “Research trends:” the bidirectional impact of urbanization and ecosystem services, the protection and management of ecosystem services under the background of urbanization, and the impact of urbanization on global change: these concepts represents the core of the submitted manuscript and it is necessary that they be presented and discussed in order to make the reader aware of the positions of the authors and on the perspective they assume to assess the 2000-2022 international and Chinese trends concerning these issues;
4) Subsections 3.1 “International perspective” and 3.2 “China’s perspective:” a comparative discussion on the four types of ecosystem services (namely, provisioning, cultural, regulating) as regards analogies and differences between China and the rest of the world is totally missing; the reader feels disoriented since there is no way to detect which is the meanings associated by the authors to the ecosystem service types, and if, to what extent, and upon which basis, trends (and prospects) related to China and the rest of the world can be discussed and compared;
5) Section 4. “Study on ecosystem service trade-offs under the background of urbanization” and Section 5. “The relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services:” the concept of trade-off focusing on ecosystem services research under the background of urbanization needs to be presented and in depth-discussed, since it is one of the main topics of the submitted manuscript; once again, I would recommend the authors make the reader aware of the analogies and differences between China and the rest of the world; I think it would be very useful to make reference to a few studies concerning the relations between urbanization processes and ecosystem services supply trends, related to Chinese and international urban and/or metropolitan contexts;
6) Subsections 6.1 “Study ecosystem service bundles in depth,” 6.2 “Strengthen the systematic research thinking of ecosystem services” and 6.3 “Ecosystem services and territorial spatial planning under the background of urbanization:” the concepts of ecosystem service bundles, urban and rural scales, urban space, agricultural space and ecological space, as regards ecosystem services and their spatial distribution need to be presented and in depth-discussed, and analogies and differences in spatial analysis practices related to China and the rest of the world be described and assessed.
iii. The content of the figures are poorly referenced in the text of the manuscript. I would recommend the authors be much more specific in presenting and discussing the results and implications of their study in the light of the figures.
iv. The text contains several typos such as “Error! Reference source not found”, or the references to the notes included in the text (see, for example, lines 253-263). I would recommend the authors implement a comprehensive revision.

Author Response

Response to reviewer 1

Question1

I would recommend the authors clarify the reasons they analyze and, in some way, compare the scientific and technical debate, trends and perspectives concerning the issue at stake as regards China and the rest of the world. In other words, why are China and the rest of the world the two subjects investigated by the submitted study? I would recommend the authors address this point in order to explain why their study is interesting and relevant for the readers of IJERPH.

Response

Thank you for your advice. In the introduction, we added the reasons for choosing China as the research area and how the research affects human well-being.

“Research on ecosystem services under the background of urbanization is particularly needed in developing countries, where most of the future urbanization will take place. As a typical representative of developing countries, China is in the stage of rapid urbanization. Due to the contradiction between the limited supply of ecosystem services and the huge demand of human beings, studying China can provide reference for other developing countries in the world.”

“In the process of urbanization, regional expansion, resource consumption, economic development, population growth and residents' lifestyle change affect the type, area and spatial distribution of regional ecosystem. Therefore, ecosystem structures, processes and functions change, which leads to changes in the supply of ecosystem services. Ecosystem services are the direct or indirect benefits obtained by human beings through the structure, process and function of ecosystem, and are the basis for the transformation of ecosystem functions to human well-being. Changes in ecosystem services may threaten human well-being.”

Question 2

The study suffers from a comprehensive lack of conceptualization. I would recommend the authors discuss in depth the following conceptual categories on which a large part of the submitted manuscript is based upon:
1) In general: urbanization and ecosystem services;

Response

Your suggestion is really important. Related concepts have been added to the introduction.

“Urbanization is the process of agglomeration of rural resources and population into cities, as well as an inevitable process of human civilization and social progress.”

“Ecosystem services are the direct or indirect benefits obtained by human beings through the structure, process and function of ecosystem, and are the basis for the transformation of ecosystem functions to human well-being.”

Question 2)

Subsection 2.3 “Research trends:” landscape pattern; static quantitative evaluation, dynamic simulation and prediction research; simple ecosystem service assessment to model research, multi-scenario simulation and multi-objective optimization;

Response

We appreciated your kind suggestions and corrected the incorrect statement. Landscape pattern is actually “Landscape” and “Pattern” as shown in Figure 3 influencing factors. Other explanations have been added to the subsection 2.3.

“’Dynamics’ gets more attention in the figure, which is often combined with simulation and prediction because modeling and predicting biophysical processes that involve dynamic changes in ecosystem services”

“As shown in the figure, ‘Model’ and ‘Framework’ have been used more since 2015, while ‘Evaluation’ has decreased. Since the process of model study involves the mechanism of ecosystem service change, it can reflect the change of ecosystem service more objectively, so quantitative evaluation such as material quality evaluation and value quantity evaluation is seldom used in research methods.”

Question 3)

Subsection 2.3 “Research trends:” the bidirectional impact of urbanization and ecosystem services, the protection and management of ecosystem services under the background of urbanization, and the impact of urbanization on global change: these concepts represents the core of the submitted manuscript and it is necessary that they be presented and discussed in order to make the reader aware of the positions of the authors and on the perspective they assume to assess the 2000-2022 international and Chinese trends concerning these issues;

Response

Your suggestion is really important. We went through the paper and found problems with our presentation. “The bidirectional impact of urbanization and ecosystem services” means “the interaction between urbanization and ecosystem services.” And “the impact of urbanization on global change” cannot be deduced from the figure, so we delete this sentence. In addition, An explanation of “the protection and management of ecosystem services under the background of urbanization” has been added to the subsection 2.3.

“The change of land use during urbanization will lead to the change of ecosystem service supply, and the change of ecosystem service will also affect the development of urbanization. Therefore, it is very important to conserve and manage ecosystem services.”

Question 4)

Subsections 3.1 “International perspective” and 3.2 “China’s perspective:” a comparative discussion on the four types of ecosystem services (namely, provisioning, cultural, regulating) as regards analogies and differences between China and the rest of the world is totally missing; the reader feels disoriented since there is no way to detect which is the meanings associated by the authors to the ecosystem service types, and if, to what extent, and upon which basis, trends (and prospects) related to China and the rest of the world can be discussed and compared;

Response

Thank you for your advice. Actually, the comparative on the four types of ecosystem services is not missing. The four service types in Figure 6 correspond to Figure 5, we just express them in different ways. This approach can not only express the quantity difference of the four service types between China and the world, but also directly reflect the relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services.

Besides, section 6 Conclusion has been added to the paper to facilitate the comparison of Chinese and international studies.

“The four ecosystem services have been studied all over the world, but there are differences in the types, quantity and regional distribution of the studies. Internationally, regulating services, supporting services and provisioning services outnumber cultural services. However, the number of regulating services in China is far more than that of provisioning and supporting services, possibly because China's rapid urbanization in the past few decades has led to a significant decline in environmental quality and frequent occurrence of natural disasters. In addition, the number of ecosystem services studies is more in regions with higher urbanization level.”

Question 5)

Section 4. “Study on ecosystem service trade-offs under the background of urbanization” and Section 5. “The relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services:” the concept of trade-off focusing on ecosystem services research under the background of urbanization needs to be presented and in depth-discussed, since it is one of the main topics of the submitted manuscript; once again, I would recommend the authors make the reader aware of the analogies and differences between China and the rest of the world; I think it would be very useful to make reference to a few studies concerning the relations between urbanization processes and ecosystem services supply trends, related to Chinese and international urban and/or metropolitan contexts;

Response

Thank you for your careful reading of our manuscript. An explanation of ecosystem service trade-offs has been added to section 4.

“Ecosystem service tradeoffs refer to the increase in the use of one ecosystem service resulting in a decrease in other ecosystem services. The tradeoff study is the basis of understanding the relationship between various ecosystem services and is helpful to reduce the conflict between socio-economic development and ecological conservation goals.”

Question 6)

Subsections 6.1 “Study ecosystem service bundles in depth,” 6.2 “Strengthen the systematic research thinking of ecosystem services” and 6.3 “Ecosystem services and territorial spatial planning under the background of urbanization:” the concepts of ecosystem service bundles, urban and rural scales, urban space, agricultural space and ecological space, as regards ecosystem services and their spatial distribution need to be presented and in depth-discussed, and analogies and differences in spatial analysis practices related to China and the rest of the world be described and assessed.

Response

Your suggestion is really important. The explanations of ecosystem service bundles and “five levels and three types” systems have been added in section 6. In addition, we have made some additional notes about subsection 6.2.

“Ecosystem service bundles is a collection of multiple ecosystem services”

“Finally, ‘five levels and three types’ system should be introduced into the study (“five levels” refers to the administrative management system divided into five levels: national, provincial, municipal, county and township levels. “Three types” are classified into general planning, detailed planning and related special planning.), in order to strengthen the research on ecosystem services under urbanization at different scales.”

“More provisioning services are distributed in rural areas, and more cultural services are distributed in cities.”

Question 3

The content of the figures are poorly referenced in the text of the manuscript. I would recommend the authors be much more specific in presenting and discussing the results and implications of their study in the light of the figures.

Response

Thank you very much for your advice. We added some expressions to the figures and table, hoping that the figures and the article will be more closely integrated.

Question 4

The text contains several typos such as “Error! Reference source not found”, or the references to the notes included in the text (see, for example, lines 253-263). I would recommend the authors implement a comprehensive revision.

Response

Thank you for pointing out mistakes. We carefully checked the article and corrected the wrong reference format.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

The article deals with important issues of ecosystem services and their relationship with the process of urbanization. It is original, but not free from errors and shortcomings. The strong point of the paper is the abstract, which clearly describes the intentions and results of the research. It is a pity that the whole article does not refer to the structure of the abstract.

In particular, the structure of the article and the methodology of the article are questionable.

The introduction is written in rather general terms, which in the absence of the theoretical chapter makes it unclear how the author understands some of the terms used in the paper, including e.g. "research hot spots", "ecosystem service trade-offs", "ecosystem service bundles", or which services he assigns to which classes of ecosystem services (supporting services, provisioning services, etc.) and what he/she understands by these terms. While a subsection is devoted to hot spots, it does not dispel doubts about how this concept is understood in the context of ecosystem services and which hot spots the author(s) distinguish. The co-occurrence of key words in the section on the right, presented in Figure 1, includes words in Chinese. As a result, it is unreadable to readers who do not speak that language. "Ecosystem service trade-offs" is devoted to Chapter 4, but the understanding of the term itself is not described there either.

The research trends described in Section 2.3 are not fully implied by the keywords presented in Figure 3 - terms such as "dynamic simulation" and "prediction" are not among the words listed in the figure. So the question arises, on what basis were the research trends indicated?

Chapters 3.1 and 3.2 should address the same issues. However, in chapter 3.1, which is written from an international perspective, and 3.2, which is written from a Chinese perspective, different analyses are conducted (in chapter 3.2, the structure of ecosystem services assigned to the 4 categories is missing, only regional variation is described).

Chapter 3.1 analyzes the number of works assigned to the 4 ecosystem service categories. It is not clear, however, whether the percentages refer to a particular year or to the sum of all the works in the examined years. Perhaps it would be worthwhile to examine such a structure for the initial and final year of analysis and make a comparison?

Both in the abstract and in the article itself (e.g. chapter 3.2.), the analysis of "correlation between urbanization and ecosystem services" is mentioned, as well as other correlations (relationships between the number of publications and the level of urbanization in the regions or the level of economic development of the region). However, the paper does not present calculated correlation coefficients between the studied aspects. As a result, it can be assumed that the conclusions about these correlations contained in the article are intuitive, have the character of observations, and have not been verified by statistical method taking into account the significance of relationships between characteristics. Thus, they do not meet the criteria for scientific research.

Section 4.2 mentions levels of urbanization ("higher”, „lower"). However, there is no indication of the methodology used to define these levels - what are the boundary values used to divide the low, moderate and high levels?

Chapter 5, or at least the initial part of it, should be at the beginning of the paper as they indicate the relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services. This part of the paper should be further elaborated on the question of types of ecosystem services.

The final chapter is "Perspectives" (not really sure of what). In this part of the study, section 6.2 draws a conclusion that is rather utopian, namely that "urban-rural scale, the development of urbanization cannot be at the cost of reducing rural ecosystem services" - where are the resources needed for urban development supposed to come from?

Section 6.3 in turn states that "ecosystem services research under the background of urbanization must be strengthened at different scales in the 'five levels and three types' system of territorial spatial planning." - However, it is not clear which levels and types are meant?

There is no summary that brings together the conclusions of the research (such conclusions are found in the abstract).

Moreover, in the article the author/authors use absolute numbers (number of publications, and not relative (countries differ in size, measured by population and scientific potential). This approach may have affected the inference process.

A similar approach was used in the construction of Figures 5, 6 and 8. Cartograms were constructed based on absolute data, which is incorrect. A cartogram should reflect relative data (e.g., per population, unit area, etc.). Absolute data can be presented in cartodiagrams.

Author Response

Question 1

Response

Thank you for your advice. We have added explanations of the terms and English notes to Figure 1. We also explain the basis for the classification of ecosystem services in section 3.

“Ecosystem service bundles is a collection of multiple ecosystem services”

“According to MEA, ecosystem services were divided into supporting services, regulating services, provisioning services and cultural services.”

Question 2

Response

Your suggestion is really important. The explanations have been added to the subsection 2.3.

Question 3

Response

Actually, the comparative on the four types of ecosystem services is not missing. The four service types in Figure 6 correspond to Figure 5, we just express them in different ways. This approach can not only express the quantity difference of the four service types between China and the world, but also directly reflect the relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services.

Besides, section 6 Conclusion has been added to the paper to facilitate the comparison of Chinese and international studies.

Question 4

Response

Thank you for pointing out mistakes. Time has been added to the paper.

“In order to study the impact of urbanization on different types of ecosystem services, papers retrieved by Web of Science from 2000 to 2022 were classified according to the types of ecosystem services. The software program Origin was used to construct figure 4 below.”

Question 5

Response

Thank you for your careful reading of our manuscript. We are really sorry for the word error, what we mean is not correlation, but relationship between urbanization and ecosystem service.

Question 6

Response

Thank you for your comments. I'm sorry for not making our meaning clear. Our classification of urbanization level is based on reference 41.

Question 7

Response

Thank you for your advice. After careful consideration we decided to adopt the present structure. This is because the paper is written in the order of overall research analysis, research content analysis and prospects. The relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services is a part of the research content, and the paper will be more smooth according to the current structure

Question 8

Response

Your suggestion is really important. we have made some additional notes about subsection 6.2.

“More provisioning services are distributed in rural areas, and more cultural services are distributed in cities.”

Question 9

Response

Thank you very much for your advice. The explanation has been added to the paper.

Question 10

There is no summary that brings together the conclusions of the research (such conclusions are found in the abstract).

Response

Your advice is very useful. We added section 6 to the paper to summarize the content.

“The research progress of ecosystem services under the background of urbanization in China is relatively the same as that in the world. The research focuses on landscape pattern and land use. The research contents are from abstract and static to concrete and dynamic.”

“Studies on ecosystem service trade-offs under the background of urbanization are mainly conducted at large scale. Chinese and international trade-off studies mostly focus on multiple cities, usually watershed and urban agglomerations. However, the research pays little attention to national, global, urban green space and other large or small scales.”

Question 11

Response

Thank you for your advice. It is not easy to compare data from different countries around the world, so bibliometrics was used because it had the advantages of being objective, quantitative and easy to compare.

Question 12

Response

Thank you for your advice very much. Figures 5, 6 and 8 can not only express the quantity difference between China and the world, but also directly reflect the relationship between urbanization and ecosystem services.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

In my opinion, the resubmitted manuscript still shows all the caveats which were highlighted in the first place. As a consequence, I would suggest IJRPH reject the study.

Reviewer 2 Report

The final chapter, "Prospects," could use a few sentences of introduction.

My comment regarding Figures 5, 6 and 8 remains unchanged - for the sake of substantive correctness, there should be cartodiagrams instead of cartograms.

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