Multi-scenario simulation of land use change and its effects on ecosystem service value: a case study of the three provinces in the middle reaches of the Yangtze River, China

Land use and land cover change (LUCC) exerts substantial influence on ecosystem service values (ESV). But conventional ESV valuation approaches frequently neglect temporal shifts in crop economic returns. Integrating high-resolution land use data (2000–2020) with the Patch-generating Land Use Simulation (PLUS) model—and augmenting it with spatial econometric analysis—we project 2030 land use configurations under four policy-relevant scenarios: Business-as-Usual (BAU), Economic Development Priority (EDP), Ecological Protection Priority (EPP), and Ecological Economic Balance (EEB). Under EDP, construction land expands by 5.52%, critically low-ESV areas increase by 476.83 km 2 (a 2.7-fold surge relative to the 2010–2020 period), and net ESV declines by 1.04%. By contrast, EPP achieves a 10.19% reduction in urban land through targeted ecological restoration, effectively arresting ESV degradation. High-value ESV zones are concentrated in water bodies and forests, which dominate regional regulating services. The three-province in the Middle Reaches of the Yangtze River epitomizes the inherent tension between rapid urbanization and ESV conservation. These findings provide a basis for assessing the social, economic and environmental factors. Furthermore, the results provide a new solution approach for formulating differentiated ecological environment protection policies in the study area and addressing key technical challenges in land use planning for large-scale ecological functional area.