Under the dual influence of climate change and land-use change/cover (LUCC), global ecosystems are facing severe challenges, threatening the sustainability of ecosystem services (ESs). As an important indicator for measuring ecological conditions, ESs usually exhibit trade-off and synergy relationships, leading to the widespread phenomenon of “one increases while the other decreases, or both increase or decrease simultaneously”. However, how to effectively identify key ESs, optimize resource allocation, and reduce conflicts among services has become a crucial problem in current research. To address this, this study evaluates six key ecosystem services—carbon storage (CS), water yield (WY), sediment delivery ratio (SDR), net primary productivity (NPP), nitrogen retention (NDR N), and phosphorus retention (NDR P). We propose a refined definition of Dominant Ecosystem Services (DES), develop an integrated quantitative assessment framework, and identify core services that are characterized by spatial dominance, cross-service relevance, and management priority. Based on this, an assessment system of “service identification - driver analysis - policy management” is established. Combined with the Partial Least Squares - Structural Equation Modeling (PLS - SEM), the study quantitatively analyzes the impacts of climate change and LUCC on the DES in China. The results showed that: (1) The concept and connotation of DES were defined, and an innovative assessment framework was proposed; (2) Among China's DES from 1990 to 2020, carbon storage (36.52%) and sediment delivery ratio (22.40%) accounted for relatively large proportions, while nutrient delivery ratio-N (4.32%) accounted for only 4.32%. There are significant order-of-magnitude differences among the services, and spatially, a pattern of service migration in the core areas and expansion of the fringe areas is presented; (3) The overall contribution of climate change to the formation of DES decreased by 27.8%, while the contribution of LUCC increased significantly by 47.7%, and its influence gradually strengthened. The findings of this study provide an effective tool for identifying ecological locational advantages and delineating ESs areas. They also offer a solid scientific basis for optimizing land-use and formulating sustainable development strategies to cope with climate change. • This study defines concepts, connotation, and models of dominant ecosystem services. • China's dominant ecosystem services show core functional shifts and edge expansion patterns. • Northeast / Northwest China's CS dominance (1990–2015) replaced by SDR post-2015. • Climate and land-use changes strengthened dominant ecosystem service formation. • NDR-N (0.829) had strongest indirect impact on ecosystem service dominance.
Zhang et al. (Thu,) studied this question.