Integrating territorial pattern changes into the relationship between carbon sequestration and water yield in the Yangtze River Basin, China

Territorial pattern plays an important role in regional ecosystem management and service provision. It is significant to demonstrate the coordination relationships between the territorial space evolutions and ecosystem services for sustainable regional development. This study focused on quantifying the impacts of production-living-ecological space change on carbon sequestration and water yield in the upper and middle-lower reaches of the Yangtze River Basin. Our results indicated that the production-living-ecological space variation trends are similar between the upper and middle-lower reaches during 2000–2020, while their impacts on ecosystem services are different in their respective regions. In the upper reaches, the changes in production and ecological space had a direct positive impact on NPP while the changes of living space had a negative impact on the NPP. However, the changes of production-living-ecological space had no significant effects on the water yield. In contrast, the changes of production and ecological space had no significant effect on the NPP in the middle-lower reaches, while the changes of ecological space had a positive effect on the water yield. Additionally, we also found that social-economic factors had no significant effects on the changes of ecological space in the middle-lower reaches of the Basin. We suggested that policy makers need to optimize the distribution of territorial space in order to maintain sustainable development.