Dynamic bundles to detect the spatiotemporal characteristics and impact factors of ecosystem services in northern China

Understanding the spatiotemporal distribution of multiple ecosystem services (ESs) and their complex internal relationships is crucial for regional collaborative sustainable development. The lack of research on the temporal dynamics of multiple ESs and their internal relationships limits the effective management of ecosystem services. Based on spatial patterns and temporal dynamics, we mapped the changes in five key ESs and assessed the internal relationships over 1324 counties in northern China from 2000 to 2018. The spatial differences in ES relationships were clustered into four distinct ES bundles, and we quantified the driving force of spatiotemporal pattern changes in ES bundles. Our results showed that the relationships among ESs changed with time. From 2000 to 2018, the ES bundle pattern changed mainly in the east. The relationship of some counties changed from the trade-off between provisioning and regulating ESs to synergy, while the others changed from low synergy to high synergy. The identification of impact factors of the service cluster pattern showed that the dominant force factor for improving ecosystem service synergy in northern China is the initial condition, and the contribution of human land management and economic development is approximately 11.0% in the high-level synergy bundles and greater than 20.0% in other bundles. By addressing the spatiotemporal change in ES bundles, we clearly identified the direction and strength of the ES response to ecosystem management and provided a basis for large-scale land management evaluation and effective information for future policy making in northern China and other areas with similar natural conditions. Graphical Abstract