Palaeoecological Laboratory, Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
Palaeoecological Laboratory, Geography and Environment, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
Sci Total Environ. 2015 Feb 15;506-507:164-81. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2014.10.096. Epub 2014 Nov 19.
Poverty alleviation linked to agricultural intensification has been achieved in many regions but there is often only limited understanding of the impacts on ecological dynamics. A central need is to observe long term changes in regulating and supporting services as the basis for assessing the likelihood of sustainable agriculture or ecological collapse. We show how the analyses of 55 time-series of social, economic and ecological conditions can provide an evolutionary perspective for the modern Lower Yangtze River Basin region since the 1950s with powerful insights about the sustainability of modern ecosystem services. Increasing trends in provisioning ecosystem services within the region over the past 60 years reflect economic growth and successful poverty alleviation but are paralleled by steep losses in a range of regulating ecosystem services mainly since the 1980s. Increasing connectedness across the social and ecological domains after 1985 points to a greater uniformity in the drivers of the rural economy. Regime shifts and heightened levels of variability since the 1970s in local ecosystem services indicate progressive loss of resilience across the region. Of special concern are water quality services that have already passed critical transitions in several areas. Viewed collectively, our results suggest that the regional social-ecological system passed a tipping point in the late 1970s and is now in a transient phase heading towards a new steady state. However, the long-term relationship between economic growth and ecological degradation shows no sign of decoupling as demanded by the need to reverse an unsustainable trajectory.
在许多地区，通过农业集约化实现了减贫目标，但人们往往对其对生态动态的影响只有有限的了解。一个核心需求是观察调节和支持服务的长期变化，以此作为评估可持续农业或生态崩溃可能性的基础。我们展示了如何通过分析 55 个社会、经济和生态条件的时间序列，为自 20 世纪 50 年代以来的现代长江下游流域地区提供一个进化视角，从而深入了解现代生态系统服务的可持续性。过去 60 年来，该地区提供服务的生态系统不断增加，这反映了经济增长和成功减贫，但自 20 世纪 80 年代以来，一系列调节生态系统服务的急剧减少与之并存。1985 年后，社会和生态领域之间的联系日益紧密，表明农村经济的驱动因素更加统一。自 20 世纪 70 年代以来，当地生态系统服务的体制转变和波动性加剧表明，该地区的弹性正在逐渐丧失。特别令人关注的是，一些地区的水质服务已经越过了关键转折点。从整体上看，我们的研究结果表明，该地区的社会-生态系统在 20 世纪 70 年代末已经越过了一个临界点，目前正处于向新稳态过渡的暂态阶段。然而，经济增长与生态退化之间的长期关系并没有出现脱钩的迹象，这与扭转不可持续的发展轨迹的需求背道而驰。
