The Relationship Between Ecosystem Provisioning Services and Urban Economic Resilience in the Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration, China

Ecosystem services and economic development are equally important for urban sustainability, and exploring the relationship between ecosystem provisioning services (EPSs) and economic resilience (ER) can provide the key for achieving sustainable synergy between ecology and economy. Taking the Pearl River Delta Urban Agglomeration (PRD) as an example, this paper explores the relationship between EPSs and ER. Four types of EPSs were evaluated using the InVEST model and the statistical yearbook data, and ER was evaluated based on three dimensions: economic structure, economic vitality and economic innovation. The results show that (1) in the PRD, the total water yield was 57,284.04 × 106 m3, the total grain production was 3,042,988 tons, the total vegetable production was 13,890,149 tons, and the total forestry output value was CNY 11,293.04 million. High-value water yield areas and low-value grain and forestry production areas lie in the PRD core area, while each prefecture-level city has high-value vegetable production areas. (2) The average ER value of the PRD 2020 is 0.32; the ER in the core areas of the PRD and the central urban areas of cities is relatively high. (3) ER was significantly negatively correlated with grain production, vegetable production, and forestry production in PRD and its core area and was positively correlated with water yield. Finally, this study puts forward suggestions for balancing ecological and economic development in urban agglomerations from the aspects of strengthening water conservancy regulation, valuing ecological products, and regional industrial coordination.