i An update to this article is included at the end

Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974

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Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Application of ecosystem service flows model in water security assessment:

A case study in Weihe River Basin, China
Cheng Zhang a, Jing Li a, *, Zixiang Zhou b, Yijie Sun c
a
School of Geography and Toursim, Shannxi Normal University, China
b
Xi’an University of Science and Technology, China
c
School of Modern Posts, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an, ShaanXi, China

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: Assessing water resource security is vital for the environment development. However, most studies only focus on
Ecosystem services flows the static water security status of the region, ignored the spatial flows of ecosystem services. Whereas by inte­
Water provision service grating the ecosystem services flows model into water security simulation, that we could provide scientific
Water security
reference for achieving the local water resources sustainable development, and making effective ecological
Geographic detectors
Weihe River Basin
compensation policy. In our study, ecosystem service flows model was integrated into water security assessment
to simulate the spatial patterns of water security in Weihe River Basin (WRB) from 2005 to 2015. The results
show that (1) the contradiction between the supply and demand of water resources in WRB was prominent, due
to the upstream water resources supply, the areas which achieve water security accounted for 10.89% each year.
Furthermore, the insufficient and unsupplied areas were increased, which was adverse to the sustainable
development of the river basin. (2) The water security index (WSI) in WRB was the lowest in 2010, and the
highest in 2005. The change of regional WSI was influenced by the nature environment and human beings, and
the main factors were agricultural water consumption and population. (3) The spatial heterogeneity of agri­
cultural water consumption was diverse in the whole river basin, the agricultural water-use efficiency in Weinan
City was lower, while the per residential domestic water in Xi’an and Xianyang city was much higher. Therefore
local government should advocate develop water-saving agriculture and control urban water quotas, moreover,
by adjusting water price cost and raise raising residents’ human awareness of water-saving so as to improve the
water security in the river basin. This study could provide a theoretical basis for the sustainable development of
regional water resources and the promoting the mechanism of ecological compensation.

1. Introduction activity and management measures would directly or indirectly affect

Water is the source of life and also regarded as the important ma­
terial basis for human being and agricultural production. Freshwater
resources that can be directly or indirectly utilized by human beings are
of the highest value among all ecosystem services (Boithias et al., 2014;
Costanza et al., 1997); With the rapid economic development, popula­
tion growth, ecological environment deterioration and global warming,
scientific management and allocation of water resources has become the
hotspot of research in the recent years. (Khan and Zhao, 2019; Mitchell,
2005; Mysiak et al., 2005). Regional water security is a common index
used to evaluate and manage water resources which is the outcome of
various factors coming from nature and human beings (La Notte et al.,
2012; Zhang et al., 2019). For example, climate, land use, human
the region water security by changing the balance between supply and
demand of regional water resources (Abulizi et al., 2017; Jun and
Yongyong, 2008; Veettil and Mishra, 2016). Therefore, evaluating the
regional water safety and analyzing the driving forces are very signifi­
cant to the local harmonious development among ecology, society and
economy (Green et al., 2015).
Ecosystem service flows are based on the relationship between
regional supply and demand, and quantifies quantitatively analyze the
interaction of ecosystem services between different regions which is
similar with the research of water resources assessment (Schröter et al.,
2018; Serna-Chavez et al., 2014). Describing and quantifying the flow
capacity of water provision service can link the functions of ecosystem
services between different regions and can be more easily applied to

* Corresponding author at: Shaanxi Normal University, School of Geography and Toursim, Shaanxi, 710000, China
E-mail address: lijing@snnu.edu.cn (J. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106974
Received 12 May 2020; Received in revised form 10 September 2020; Accepted 16 September 2020
Available online 25 September 2020
1470-160X/© 2020 The Authors. Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
C. Zhang et al.
regional management and decision-making (Semmens et al., 2018; Vidal
et al., 2014). Therefore, the regional water resource security assessment
combined with ecosystem service flows is reasonable.
The inter-regional interactions of population, information, goods and
ecosystem services are becoming the main characteristic of the devel­
opment of world globalization. Protecting and managing global natural
resource capital requires an understanding of the complexity of
ecosystem services flowing across geographic boundaries, whereas a
complete conclusion cannot be received without understanding these
flows and incorporating them into ecosystem services assessments
(Schröter et al., 2018). Costanza found that the generation of ecosystem
service function and the realization of ecosystem services might occur in
different spaces, and that mainly resulted in the unfair distribution of
ecosystem service space (Costanza et al., 1997). Therefore, how to
establish the spatial and temporal connection between production and
consumption and realize the spatio-temporal path representation of
ecosystem service flows is the breakthrough point in the study of
ecosystem service. At present, the study of ecosystem service flows is
still in early and conceptualization stage, and most are focusing on
assessment of potential ecosystem services and be short of analyzing the
change of in different time scale. Burkhard believed that the study of
ecosystem services should be carried out from the perspective of supply
and demand of ecosystem services and their interrelationships (Bur­
khard et al., 2012). Schägner summarized the methods of economic
assessment and mapping and considered the flow of ecosystem services
as a combination of supply and value distribution (Schägner et al.,
2013). Based on the above quantification concept of ecosystem service
flows is the foundation of the study of ecosystem service flow, and the
quantification of the relationship between supply and demand of
ecosystem services is a the necessary prerequisite for the study of
ecosystem service flow. Li Ting simulated the matching of the spatial
supply and demand of carbon sequestration services, then quantified the
proportion and direction of carbon sequestration services, and opti­
mized the regional flow pattern (Li et al., n.d.). Chen proposes an ar­
chitecture that combines water supply, water demand and spatial flow
to inform land use planning (Chen et al., 2020). Global ecosystem ser­
vice flows are also attracting increasing attention (Koellner et al., 2018).
Fridman and Kissinger analyzed the impact of agricultural production
and trade flows on the ecosystem services at the importer/receiving, and
the tradeoff synergies between agricultural efficiency and the environ­
ment (Fridman and Kissinger, 2018). Schröter proposed the basic
research framework of ecosystem service flows and tested it in four
different ecosystem service types, then indicated that enhance the un­
derstanding of remote interactions between various regions in social
ecosystems which could provide theoretical basis for the sustainable
development of ecosystem services development (Schröter et al., 2018).
In recent years, water resources security covers a wide range, in this
paper we focuses on the healthy water cycle by considering the based on
the balance between of supply and demand. At present, most researches
on water security focus on the quantification of water supply and de­
mand (Anand et al., 2018) and the response to climate (Allan et al.,
2013) and land use change (QIU et al., 2012). In order to properly
befittingly manage and control adjust the relationship between water
supply and demand, a large number of most studies have also explored
the relationship interactions between water, energy and food (Biggs
et al., 2015; Fabiani et al., 2020). However, most studies used static
model to calculate the amount of water resource supply and demand
ignoring the characteristics of water resources flow and cross-regional
supply. The flow characteristics of water provision service are the
most obvious. Some studies have quantified regional explored the water
resource flow pattern with in sub-basins as the research unit (Xu et al.,
2019). Li Delong established a simplified model of surface water
resource flow with in the grid cell as the flow unit to quantify analyze the
recharge relationship difference of water yield between the upstream
and downstream of the study area (Li et al., 2017). Qin Keyu evaluated
the spatial distribution pattern of water resource security based on the
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Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974
spatial flow model by establishing different land use scenarios in the
future, while it not discussed the driving factors of water security and is
impossible to regulate water consumption in different regions (Qin et al.,
2019). In general, the evaluation of water security and its driving forces
analysis based on the flow perspective are urgently needed.
The Weihe River Basin (WRB) is the tributary of the Yellow River.
The spatial distribution of water resources is uneven in the basin, and
the water resources pressure in the downstream is huge especially in
Xi’an City. In this study, we used the spatial flow model of ecosystem
services to evaluate the spatial flow pattern of water resources in WRB in
2005, 2010 and 2015, and the spatial distribution characteristics of
static and dynamic water resource security index (WSI) are discussed.
Meanwhile, the main driving factors of regional water resources security
are analyzed by using geographic detector, and also combined with the
dominant water consumption types and water resources utilization ef­
ficiency of each region. This research would to provide the scientific
support for the scientific management of water resources and the deci­
sion-making.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study areas
The WRB is the largest tributary of the Yellow River, which origi­
nates from the Niaoshu Mountain in Gansu Province, and flows through
Tianshui, Baoji, Xi’an and so on. Then it flows into the Yellow River in
Tongguan County of, Shaanxi Province, with a total length of 818 km.
The WRB is located at 103◦ 53′ -110◦ 18′ E and 33◦ 29′ -37◦ 34′ N, and the
watershed area of 135700 km2 and an elevation 319–3886 m (Fig. 1).
The WRB belongs to the arid and semi-arid continental climate, with an
average annual temperature in 6 ~ 13℃. The average annual precipi­
tation is between 600 mm and 800 mm, and 65% of the precipitation is
concentrated within July to September, which is the period that is prone
to floods. The distribution of runoff is uneven and decreases from the
south to the north. The north slope of the Qinling Mountains on the
south bank of the Weihe River has abundant annual runoff and changes
little, while the annual runoff in the loess area on the north bank is small
but has great variability. Due to its profound historical background,
good industrial foundation, important strategic position and strong
scientific and educational strength, the Weihe River trunk stream water
system has formed the Guanzhong - Tianshui Economic Region, which is
the primary focus area of China’s western development. With the rapid
economy development, the core urban agglomeration has caused the
water shortages decreasing and the ecological environment destruction.
Because of its obvious spatial gradient, the spatial flow of ecosystem
services in WRB has many potential application.
2.2. Data source
The research mainly applied three data sets, including spatial data
set, statistical data set and meteorological data set. DEM data was
downloaded from the geospatial data cloud website with a resolution of
30 m. The land use data in 2005, 2010 and 2015 were obtained from the
Center for Resources and Environment of the Chinese Academy of Sci­
ences with a resolution of 30 m. The soil data were provided by the
Harmonized World Soil Database produced by the Food and Agriculture
Organization of the United Nations (FAO), the International Institute for
Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) and the Institute of Soil Science,
Chinese Academy of Sciences. DMSP data with 1 km resolution was
selected for night lighting data in 2005, 2010, and VIIRS data with
higher accuracy was used in 2015, with a resolution of 500 m. Both data
were downloaded from the National Geophysical Data Center website.
Daily data of 15 meteorological stations in the research area from 2000
to 2015 were obtained from China Meteorological Data. Continuous
hydrological observation data of Huaxian hydrological station. The
statistical data are from the Water Resources Bulletin and the Regional
C. Zhang et al.
Fig. 1. Location of the WRB.
Statistical Yearbook.
2.3. Method
2.3.1. Water provision service
(1) Description of VIC model
The Variable Infiltration Capacity Macroscale Hydrologic Model
(VIC) model is a physically-based hydrological model, which was
developed by Liang and Lettenmaier (1994). This model divides the
study area into many grids and each grid contains its own soil vegetation
data and carries out calculations separately. The spatial distribution
function is applied to represent the change in the soil water storage
capacity in each grid. The model considers two types of runoff yield
mechanisms infiltration excess and saturation, and each surface feature
type has a variable infiltration curve. The data of evapotranspiration and
runoff can be obtained by simulating the hydrological process of the
region. Therefor this model has been widely used in the simulation of
large-scale hydrological processes.
The VIC model is a large-scale distributed hydrological model, with
the characteristics of raster data sets and large scale. The input data
mainly includes soil, vegetation and meteorological dataset. In this
study, we divided the whole WRB into 866 cells with the resolution of
0.125◦ × 0.125◦ , according to the coupling effect of geographical
characteristics and climate models in the study area. The Inverse Dis­
tance Weighting (IDW) method is used to interpolate the meteorological
data into the grid scale. The classification standard of vegetation data is
the land cover data classification system of the University of Maryland.
The model is driven by the area proportion data of each vegetation or
soil type in each grid. In addition, the accuracy of the model was verified
by the monthly runoff data of Huaxian station.
(2) Water provision service
The water provision service is different from the water conservation
service. The water provision service focuses on the fresh water provision
capacity of the ecosystem to surrounding areas and the downstream
areas through the redistribution of rainwater. Specifically, it indicates
that water that can flow in the defined space. The water conservation
capacity represents that the water is absorbed by vegetation and infil­
trated into the soil. Furthermore, the water fixed by the ecosystem
cannot flow in the space. Therefore, the quantity of the water supply in
this study contains the surface flow and base flow, and focus on the
spatial mobility. Meanwhile combining with previous experience and
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Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974
relevant hydrological knowledge, we build an assessment formula of the
water supply capacity which is appropriate for the VIC model.
Watersupply =(SF +BF − Evap flow) × Areagrid (1)
Where Watersupply is water supply, SF is the surface flow, BF is the
base flow, Evap flow is the water surface evaporation. Where SF and BF
can be obtained by the model,Evap flow can be obtained indirectly from
other results of the model.
Evapflow = Evap − Evap veg − Evap bare (2)
Where Evap is the total evaporation, Evap veg is the vegetation
transpiration, Evap bare is the soil evaporation.
2.3.2. Water consumption
In this study, the water demand of WRB is evaluated from four parts:
agricultural water consumption, industrial water consumption, resi­
dential water consumption and ecological water consumption. The
formula is as follows;
Wdem = Waw + Wiw + Wrw + Wew
= G1 × Wig1 + G23 × Wig23 + P × Wip + P × Wie (3)
In the formula, Wdem is the water demand in the grid unit; Waw is the
water consumption of agriculture and animal husbandry in the grid unit;
Wiw is the water consumption of production in the grid unit; Wrw is the
domestic water consumption in the grid unit; G1 and G23 respectively
represent the GDP of the first industry and the GDP of the second in­
dustry in the grid unit; Wew means the ecological water consumption in
the grid unit
Wig1 and Wig23 respectively represent the water consumption per
10,000 yuan of GDP of the first city And the water consumption per
10,000 yuan of GDP in the ith city; P represents the population in the
grid unit; Wip and Wie represents the per capita domestic water con­
sumption and ecological water consumption in the ith city. The unit
water consumption of each city is calculated from the data in the sta­
tistical yearbook and water resources bulletin of each city.
The method is based on spatialized GDP and population data. The
following is an introduction to the spatialization method. Based on the
proportion of GDP of agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and fishery
in each city, the agricultural GDP is equally distributed to cultivated
land, forest land, grassland and water. The spatialization of industrial
GDP is mainly realized by establishing the regression equation of GDP
C. Zhang et al.
data and night light data according to the principle of no industrial GDP
without light value. The urban and rural population are spatialized by
the population density coefficient combine the land use data, river and
road distribution data and statistical data. Because the ecological water
consumption is less, this paper calculates the ecological water con­
sumption is included in the residential water consumption. Details are
shown in Fig. 2.
2.3.3. Spatial flow model on water provision service
The flow model of water provision service is determined by three
matrix elements of spatial continuous distribution represent water
supply, water consumption and flow direction respectively (Fig. 3). It
mainly includes the following parts:
Flow unit: The flow unit is a group of matrix elements with
continuous space. Based on this, three basic data sets of water supply,
water consumption and flow direction are integrated for further calcu­
lation. In this study, it is appropriate for us to take the operation scale of
VIC model as the basic research unit. The main reasons why we choose
the VIC model are as follows: firstly, the model can take into account the
comprehensive effects of weather, topography and vegetation. Sec­
ondly, the output data of VIC model is raster data, which is convenient
for subsequent processing. Thirdly, VIC model is based on the flow di­
rection to calculate the confluence process. Therefore, we believe that
VIC model is more suitable for this flow research. The data in each unit
takes one year as the time step to calculate the supply and demand of
water resources.
Flow direction: In the natural condition, the water flow direction is
taken as the flow direction of the water provision service , which is based
on the DEM, and in the study this phenomenon only occur flow in the
adjacent grids, while it is not in the inside grid. Use specific numbers (1,
2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128) to represent eight adjacent grid directions. And
ensure that each unit will flow to the river basin exports.
Quantity of flow: The Loess Plateau is a typical runoff yield under
excess infiltration region, the groundwater is buried rather deeply and it
is more difficult to utilization (Zhang et al., 2014). Therefore, ground­
water is neglected in this paper. The quantity of flow is equal to the
surplus of water resources. And we cognizance that all units with posi­
tive surplus will be transferred according to the flow direction until the
surplus is negative or the river basin exports.
2.3.4. Regional water security assessment
Water security index (WSI) is used to evaluate the water security
level of the area. The index quantifies regional water security from the
perspective of regional water supply and demand balance, and its value
is often unable to be compared among different regions. For example,
Fig. 2. Flow chart of water consumption.
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Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974
due to the industrial development and the residents living, the water
consumption of the main city group must be much higher than rural
area. The purpose of this study is to express the influence of upstream
recharge water amount on regional water security through the change of
WSI. Therefore, WSI is divided into static WSI and flow WSI. In static
mode, upstream water is not considered, while in flow mode, upstream
water supply is considered.
( )
P
WSI static = lg (4)
D
( )
Flow + P
WSI flow = lg (5)
D
In above formula, P is the water supply of each research unit, and D is
the water demand of each research unit. The meaning of Flow is the
surplus water from the upstream. It is worth noting that the surplus
water in each grid is the water after consumption. Therefore, repeated
calculation is avoided. When WSI is >0, it means the surplus of water
resources is positive; when WSI is <0, it means the surplus of water
resources is negative.
2.3.5. The Geographical detectors
The Geographical Detectors method is a set of statistical methods to
detect spatial heterogeneity and reveal the driving forces behind them
(Wang et al., 2016). The Geographical detectors include four sub-
detectors, and the factor detector selected in this paper. Its main func­
tion is to detect the spatial heterogeneity of dependent variable Y, by
calculating the q values of the respective variables X, we can find out to
what extent X explains the heterogeneity of Y. The formula is as follows
∑L 2
h=1 Nh σ h SSW
q = 1− = 1− (6)
N σ2 SST
In above formula, h = 1, …, L is the number of layers of independent
variable X; Nh and N are the number of units in corresponding layer h
and all units; σ2h and σ 2 is the variance of h and Y values of all elements in
the corresponding layer; SSW and SST are intra-layer variance and total
variance of all cells, respectively. The closer the value of q is to 1, the
more explanatory power of the independent variable X to the hetero­
geneity of the dependent variable Y.
3. Results
3.1. Spatial distribution of water supply
This study takes 2000–2005 as the model warm-up period, takes
C. Zhang et al. Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974

Fig. 3. Flow model schematic diagram.

2006–2010 as the model rate to adjust relevant parameters regularly,
and takes 2011–2015 as the model validation period to test the opera­
tion results. Relative error (Er) and Nash efficiency coefficient (Ens)
were selected to evaluate the simulation of the model. When Er < 15%
and Ens > 0.7 were satisfied, the model had a high applicability in the
WRB. Fig. 4 shows the fitting result of runoff, and all indexes meet the
requirements of accuracy. Therefore, it can be proved that VIC model
has good applicability in WRB.
The spatial and temporal distribution of water provision in WRB is
shown in Fig. 5. The total water supply of WRB in 2005, 2010 and 2015
was 10.97 billion m3, 10.31 billion m3 and 7.34 billion m3, respectively.
It can be see that the high value areas of water yield are mainly
concentrated in the upper reaches of the major stream of the WRB,
especially in the north slope of the Qinling Mountains in the central and
the upsteam of the Beiluo River, where there are aggregated in the forest
land and grass land. With the rapid development of urbanization, the
increase of urban land and the decrease of forest land and grassland lead
to the increase of surface runoff, the decrease of underground base flow
and the increase of evaporation. The low-value areas of water supply in
WRB were located near Xi’an city with the flat terrain and intensive
population. In 2015, the total supply of water resources decreased
sharply compared with the previous two years, mainly due to the low
precipitation in the northeast of the basin in 2015, which led to a sig­
nificant reduction of runoff in the upper reaches of the Beiluo River.

Fig. 4. Comparison of observed and simulated streamflow.

5
C. Zhang et al.
Fig. 5. Spatial distribution of water supply.
3.2. Spatial distribution of water consumption
The demand for water provision service in the WRB is shown in
Fig. 6. The total water consumption of the agriculture in the basin from
2005 to 2015 was 3.45 billion m3, 3.61 billion m3 and 3.53 billion m3,
respectively. The areas of Xifeng and Yan’an had the lowest agriculture
water consumption. The agricultural GDP of Wuzhong city is low with
massive water consumption, which is caused by the high evapotrans­
piration. In 2015, the highest agricultural water consumption is
discovered in Weinan City. The total industrial water consumption in
WRB is 1.10 billion m3, 1.05 billion m3 and 1.05 billion m3, respectively.
The annual amount of growing residential water consumption is to 1.05
billion m3, 1.22 billion m3 and 1.68 billion m3 respectively. In terms of
the spatial distribution, the water consumption in Xi’an city is much
higher than the other cities. Because the increasing population, the
water consumption for human being has gradually become the second
largest water consumption type in WRB. Overall, the increasing water
consumption of agriculture and industry in WRB is relatively small,
while the increase of water consumption for living is relatively large. In
addition, the efficiency of water resources utilization is much lower in
the north of WRB region, and the main benefit areas of water
Fig. 6. Spatial distribution of water consumption in different departments.
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Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974
consumption are located in the Xi’an City.
3.3. Surplus of water resources
In the flow mode, the upstream residual water is regarded as the
natural supply to the downstream areas. The surplus of water resources
in the static mode in WRB in each year is shown in Fig. 7(a), and (b) is
the surplus of water resources in the flow mode. From 2005 to 2015, the
total surplus of WRB was 5.79 billion m3, 4.69 billion m3 and 1.19
billion m3, respectively. The proportion of negative areas from 2005 to
2015 was 23.6%, 27.5% and 27.02%, respectively. The surplus of water
resources in Beiluo river is relatively abundant, and the water resources
pressure in main stream system of Weihe River is the largest. In the flow
mode, the amount of local water resources in the river areas were much
higher than that in the surrounding areas, the water replenishment in
the upstream greatly alleviates the water resources pressure in the
downstream, such as the Xi’an, Weinan and other cities. From 2005 to
2015, the proportion of negative areas was 12.4%, 16.9% and 16.4%
respectively, in the flow mode. By comparison, even in severe water
shortages, there still need an abundance of manageable water resources,
so the evaluation of water resources based on the flow model could
C. Zhang et al. Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974

Fig. 7. Water surplus in the whole WRB.

reflect the reality using of the region water resources and provide sci­
entific basis of for the water resources management in WRB.
3.4. Water security index
WSI was selected to evaluate regional water resources security. Ac­
cording to the WSI value, the watershed is divided into four grades: High
water security (WSI > 1); Good degree of water security (0 < WSI < 1);
Poor water security (− 1 < WSI < 0); Low degree of water security (WSI
< − 1).
From 2005 to 2015, the degree of water resources security in the
downstream of urban agglomerations shows an obvious downward
trend. In the upstream of WRB, the higher WSI values were located in the
northern slope region of the Qinling Mountains and the upstream of

Fig. 8. Water resources evaluation results of the WRB.

7
C. Zhang et al.
Beiluo river, where were concentrated woodland and grassland the
variation range was lower. In the past ten years, the average water se­
curity index of WRB was the lowest in 2010, and the highest was in
2005, and the contradiction between supply and demand of water re­
sources was the largest in 2015. The areas of the greatest water resource
pressure was found in Xi’an City and Weinan City. In the dynamic model
Fig. 8(b), an average of 10.89% of the areas achieved water safety
through upstream water supply per year. Moreover, most of the revenue
areas are located in the downstream of WRB, including Xi’an, Xianyang
and Weinan. Combining the spatial distribution of WSI in the two states,
that can provide a more reasonable reference to construct of regional
water resources management measures and ecological compensation
policies.
4. Discussion
4.1. Spatial variation of water resource security index
Regional water security is the comprehensive result of water supply
and consumption and water from upstream. Climate change and human
activities have also greatly increased the uncertainty of water security.
Previous studies mainly considered the relationship between water
supply and demand, and evaluated water safety based on static state,
therefore ignoring the spatial flow of ecosystem services, which greatly
reduces the spatial integrity. This kind of water security evaluation
method can only reflect the water security situation in one region.
Previous studies have confirmed the influence of flow model on the
spatial–temporal distribution of water security. Water resources are
mainly distributed in the upstream of WRB and the southern moun­
tainous areas. While in the lower reaches of Xi’an city and Weinan City,
the water consumption is more. This means that there is a spatial
mismatch between the supply and demand of water supply services in
WRB. This finding has been confirmed by many studies. The results
show that the spatial and temporal pattern of water supply and service is
relatively complex, and the spatial pattern of water consumption is
roughly the same. There are abundant available water resources in the
main stream of Weihe River, but at the same time it shoulders the
important responsibility of urban development. In the flow mode, some
cities in the downstream are not water deficient cities though they
consume more water. This is due to the availability of a large amount of
water supply from the upper reaches of the river system. For example,
the water consumption is low in Yan’an and other cities in the upstream
of Beiluo river which resulted in a large number of water resources in the
lower reaches of Weinan City and this is a reflection of the character­
istics of ecosystem services flows. Target to identify regional water re­
sources related to local potential and upstream and downstream
relationships. Therefore, this paper analyzed two states of water re­
sources security, and on the basis of the two modes, the regional water
resources are divided into the following four categories. The flow types
and characteristics are described in Table 1.
The type of flow is shown in Fig. 9. In 2005–2015, the proportion of
class I was 75.98%, 72.75% and 73.09%, respectively. It shows that most
areas in the basin can meet their own development needs. The propor­
tion of the second category is decreasing year by year and that of the
Table 1
Flow type and feature description.
Type Feature Description
I the area where water resources are sufficient to meet local development
without upstream supply
II the area where water resources are relatively sufficient and surplus can
continue to flow after upstream supply
III the area where water resources cannot meet their own development needs
and can be supplied by upstream but not fully supplied
IV the area where water resources are seriously deficient and surplus is negative
and there is no upstream supply
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Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974
fourth category is increasing year by year, which shows that the current
situation of water resources supply in the basin is inferior and there is a
deterioration trend. The first type of region is filled with sufficient water
resources. The water conservation project should be carried out to
enhance the region’s water conservation capacity, and improve the
response capacity to ecological risks, ensure the water use of down­
stream, and achieve ecological compensation. The second and third
category areas are compensated areas. They should strengthen their own
water resource management capacity, appropriately reduce the water
quota, and provide ecological compensation for the upstream areas.
Water diversion scheme shall be properly adopted in class IV areas to
relieve water pressure in the river basin.
4.2. Policy for regional water resources management
This study simulates the supply, demand and flow of water in the
WRB. Its basic purpose is to improve the regional water security and
provide scientific support for the government management and
ecological compensation policy.
4.2.1. Geodetector analysis
Some studies have proved that controlling urban water quota has
positive effect on improving the contradiction between supply and de­
mand of regional water resources and water efficiency. Climate change
and land use policy regulate regional water security by affecting runoff.
Therefore, our research analyzes the main driving factors of water se­
curity in the WRB. The seven influencing factors of regional WSI is
analyzed by geographic detector. The seven factors include social and
economic factors, water consumption and water supply. The results are
shown in Table 2, we can see that agricultural GDP has the largest
explanatory power to watershed WSI and the q value is basically stable.
The industrial GDP has the lowest explanatory power to watershed WSI.
Among the three factors of water resource consumption, the q value of
agricultural water consumption is much higher than that of industrial
production and domestic water consumption. The explanatory power of
domestic water consumption to regional WSI showed a stead increasing
trend. The q value of precipitation also increased year by year, which
shows that the water resource security of the basin is dependent on the
regional water production. From 2005 to 2015, the contribution rate of
agricultural GDP and agricultural water consumption gradually
decreased, which shows that the main factor of water resource security
in WRB is still the agriculture, but its influence is decreasing. Compared
with agricultural GDP, the q value of agricultural water consumption
decreased significantly, which was due to the improvement of agricul­
tural irrigation technology in the basin, and the utilization rate of
agricultural water resources increased. As the population growth in the
basin, the impact of domestic water consumption on the water resources
security in the basin increased significantly. In brief, agricultural water
use is still the main determinant of water security in the WRB, which is
also consistent with other studies. The explanatory power of water
consumption of urban residents to water security is increasing gradually.
In the future, besides controlling agricultural water, the government
should also focus on regulating urban residents’ water use to improve
regional water safety.
4.2.2. Analysis of water resource utilization efficiency
This research quantifies the water resources security pattern of WRB
and analyzes the driving force, which has scientific reference for the
water security situation in the whole basin. In order to facilitate the
managers to make accurate and effective policies, our study assessed the
water resource utilization efficiency which determined by the per capita
water consumption or unit GDP water consumption in this section. We
calculate the utilization efficiency of the dominant water use type which
reflects the characteristics of regional water structure, the result is show
in Fig. 10. The high-efficiency areas of industrial water (IW) are mainly
distributed in Yulin City in the north of WRB, and the low efficiency
C. Zhang et al. Ecological Indicators 120 (2021) 106974

Fig. 9. Grid flow categories.

Table 2
Risk factor detection results.
Agricultural GDP Industrial GDP Population Agricultural water consumption Industrial water consumption Water consumption of residents Precipitation

05 0.2882 0.0685 0.1963 0.3897 0.0903 0.1044 0.1125

10 0.2913 0.1223 0.2039 0.3039 0.1035 0.1490 0.1219
15 0.2603 0.0734 0.1802 0.3082 0.1010 0.1801 0.1816

the reasons for the low efficiency, so as to improve the water security of
the river basin. Efficiency distribution map can also provide scientific
support for making ecological compensation policy which is the one of
the purposes of ecosystem service flow research. In addition to consid­
ering the amount of compensation objects in the formulation of
compensation policy, the priority of compensation should be rated ac­
cording to the characteristics of regional development. For example,
there is a huge divergence in the efficiency of agricultural water between
Yan’an and Weinan in Beiluo River. Should Yan’an get more
compensation?

4.3. Applicability and improvement of flow model

Fig. 10. The proportion of each Water consumption categories. IW means in­
dustrial water, AW means agricultural water, RW means residential water.
areas were distributed in Pingliang City in the middle of the basin. The
agricultural water consumption (AW) in Weinan city is huge but the
efficiency is low. The per residential water consumption (RW) of Xia­
nyang and Xi’an is large, and that in Gansu Province is low. Generally
speaking, the regional difference of agricultural water consumption is
large. The agricultural water consumption is huge in Weinan city and
the efficiency is low. The industrial water consumption is stable and the
utilization efficiency of water resources is high. The high value areas of
per residential water consumption are mainly distributed in Xi’an and
Xianyang.
Through the research, it is found that the low efficiency of water
resources utilization or excessive consumption in some areas have also
become the main factor restricting water security. The utilization effi­
ciency of water resources in downstream cities is generally lower than
that in upstream areas, which is caused by the development character­
istics of downstream cities. We think that if the main type of water
consumption in an area is inefficient, it will become the focus of gov­
ernment regulation, such as Weinan city. The government should
comprehend the characteristics of regional water structure and find out
In this paper, VIC model and water supply service spatial flow model
are used to simulate the spatial flow variation law of water provision in
natural conditions. Combined with the characteristics of regional water
consumption, the influence of natural and human being on regional
water security is considered. It can provide some references for cross-
regional supply. But the spatial interaction of water supply services is
complex, this study also has some limitations in the simulation of water
supply capacity. The simulation of the flow process is too ideal, ignoring
the loss of water resources in the process of transmission. Available
water resources should also include a small amount of groundwater,
which also leads to an underestimation of the water supply capacity of
the method. Due to the difficulty in obtaining and quantifying data, the
simulation of water provision service flows is not take into account the
regulatory functions of human infrastructure on regional water re­
sources, such as reservoirs, dams and water diversion projects. For
example, the Heihe reservoir near Xi’an greatly alleviates the water
shortage in the city. Furthermore, water storage measures such as res­
ervoirs and ponds have to some extent weakened the impact caused by
the uneven seasonal distribution of precipitation, however, the seasonal
flow of water resources is still a problem worthy of study. In the future, it
is necessary to conduct a variety of time and space scale ecosystem
services flows studies.
5. Conclusions
In this paper, a new framework of water resource security assessment
is constructed based on the ecosystem services flows characteristics. The
water resource security pattern of WRB in 2005, 2010 and 2015 was
simulated. The main driving factors of regional water resource security
were analyzed by geographic detector. The results showed that the
spatial distribution of water resources in WRB was uneven and the

9
C. Zhang et al.
contradiction between supply and demand was prominent. The water
resources in most areas of the basin are in good condition and can meet
their region development needs. However the proportion of beneficiary
areas increased year by year, and the regional water resources security
level was low and the areas that cannot be supplied by the upstream
increased, which was not conducive to the sustainable ecological
development of the basin. It was found that low water production and
overpopulation were the main causes of extreme water shortage. it is
necessary to strengthen the regional water conservation projects in the
wet season, and improve the water resource management and adjust the
water resource quota together with the upstream supply area, and
provide ecological compensation for the upstream area. The contribu­
tion rate of agricultural water consumption and population to regional
water security is the largest, and the difference of agricultural water
consumption within the basin is increased. The efficiency of agricultural
water consumption in Weinan City and some regions in the upper rea­
ches of the basin was too low, while the per capita living water con­
sumption in Xi’an and Xianyang city while was higher. Therefore, we
should advocate water-saving agriculture, control the water quota of
urban population, adjust the water fee, and develop the water-saving
awareness of residents.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Cheng Zhang: Conceptualization, Methodology, Software, Writing -
original draft. Jing Li: Writing - review & editing, Supervision. Zixiang
Zhou: Funding acquisition. Yijie Sun: Visualization, Resources.
Declaration of Competing Interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial
interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence
the work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
This study is supported by the National Natural Science Foundation
of China, No. 41771198, No. 41771576); The NSFC-NRF Scientific
Cooperation Program (Grant no. 41811540400). The Fundamental
Research Funds for the Central Universities, Shaanxi Normal University
(GK201901009, 2020CBLY011).
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 Update
Ecological Indicators
Volume 121, Issue , February 2021, Page

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107121
 Ecological Indicators 121 (2021) 107121

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Ecological Indicators
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolind

Corrigendum

Corrigendum to “Application of ecosystem service flows model in water

security assessment: A case study in Weihe River Basin, China” [Ecol. Indic.
120 (2021) 106974]
Cheng Zhang a, Jing Li a, *, Zixiang Zhou b, Yijie Sun c
a
School of Geography and Tourism, Shaanxi Normal University, China
b
Xi’an University of Science and Technology, China
c
School of Modern Posts, Xi’an University of Posts and Telecommunications, Xi’an, ShaanXi, China

The authors would like to apologize for missing the typo in the Normal University”.
university name: The corrected affiliation has shown above.
“Shannxi Normal University” in affiliation ‘a’ should be “Shaanxi

DOI of original article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.106974.

* Corresponding author at: Shaanxi Normal University, School of Geography and Tourism, Shaanxi 710000, China.
E-mail address: lijing@snnu.edu.cn (J. Li).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2020.107121

Available online 13 November 2020

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