Ecosystem Service Values Under Future Forest Landscape Dynamics on the Eastern Tibetan Plateau

The Tibetan Plateau plays a vital role in maintaining regional ecological stability across Asia, yet its subalpine forests have been severely altered by past degradation and disturbances. Assessing the potential long-term changes in these forest communities and their consequent impacts on ecosystem service values (ESVs) is critical for regional sustainability, yet remains poorly explored. This study aims to assess long-term ESV changes under future forest landscape dynamics and analyze their driving factors on the eastern Tibetan Plateau. Using the established LANDIS-II–PnET-II modeling approach, we simulated forest landscape dynamics from 2016 to 2096 under a constant-climate, no-disturbance scenario and linked the resulting landscape outputs with an improved value equivalent factor method to quantify ESVs. The results indicate that, under this scenario, secondary succession increased the dominance of late-successional coniferous forests, which became the major contributors to ESVs (>55%). Consequently, total regional ESVs showed a marginal increase of 0.48% by 2096, with distinct spatial heterogeneity. Geographical detector analysis identified human influence as the primary determinant shaping ESV spatial heterogeneity, dominating over natural environmental factors. This study provides a scenario-based assessment of long-term ESV dynamics for the Tibetan Plateau’s vulnerable subalpine forests, demonstrating key indicators to inform proactive ecological protection and adaptive land-use strategies.