Understanding the Geography of Rural Ecosystem Service Commodification in the YREB, China: A Supply–Demand Framework

The commodification of rural ecosystem services (ESs) has emerged as an important pathway for improving farmers’ livelihoods while promoting environmental protection in rural areas. However, quantitative evidence on the mechanisms and spatial heterogeneity underlying this process remains limited. Addressing this gap, this study develops a novel analytical framework based on a supply–demand perspective to systematically explain the spatial differentiation of ES commodification and its driving forces. Taking the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in China as a case study, we apply the GeoDetector method to identify the determinants of under-commodification in rural areas. The results show that both resource-oriented and market-oriented indicators exert substantial explanatory power for the spatial patterns of ES commodification, while their interaction demonstrates an even stronger effect, highlighting the joint influence of natural resource endowments and market conditions. Furthermore, spatial disparities in commodification deficits largely result from a mismatch between the distribution of ecological resources and consumer markets. In economically developed regions, commodification is mainly constrained by the degradation of rural ecosystem functions, whereas in less developed regions the key barrier lies in the difficulty of forming niche markets. By integrating ecological supply conditions with market demand dynamics, this study provides new empirical insights into the mechanisms shaping the spatial unevenness of ES commodification and offers policy-relevant evidence for designing targeted interventions to promote the orderly development of rural ES markets across regions at different stages of development.