Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Forces of Ecosystem Service Values in China’s National Parks

Understanding the spatial and temporal evolution of ecosystem service values (ESVs) and their underlying drivers is essential for advancing ecological conservation and sustainable management in protected areas. The study area comprises ten national park system pilot areas in China, covering approximately 220,000 km2 and encompassing environments ranging from tropical forests to alpine ecosystems. Using 1 km gridded data from the Spatial Distribution Dataset of Terrestrial Ecosystem Service Value in China for five observation years (2000, 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2020), we examined ESV dynamics, inter-service relationships, and their associated drivers through Mann–Kendall trend analysis, Spearman correlation analysis, partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), and Geodetector. Spatial trend analysis showed that, from 2000 to 2020, 58% of the total study area exhibited a decreasing ESV trend, 38% showed an increasing trend, and the remaining 4% remained stable; statistically significant decreases and increases accounted for 0.9% and 0.2% of the area, respectively. At the park level, ESVs increased in Three-River Source and Qilian Mountain but declined most markedly in Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park. Positive associations among ecosystem services were more widespread than negative associations, although their spatial patterns differed among parks. Climatic, topographic, and socioeconomic variables showed service-specific associations with the estimated ESVs. Because policy implementation was not directly modeled, the analysis does not isolate the effects of national park designation or specific conservation measures. These findings can provide a national comparative baseline for monitoring ESV dynamics and may inform park-specific ecosystem service-oriented management strategies in China’s national parks.