Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Science of the Total Environment

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/scitotenv

Landscape pattern and ecosystem services are critical for protected areas'
contributions to sustainable development goals at regional scale
⁎
Yuanxin Liu a,b, Yihe Lü a,c, , Bojie Fu a,c, Xiao Zhang d
a
State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
b
Academy for Multidisciplinary Studies, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China
c
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
d
Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation Center, Ministry of Natural Resources; Key Laboratory of Land Consolidation and Rehabilitation, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100035, China

H I G H L I G H T S G R A P H I C A L A B S T R A C T

• Protected areas' contributions to SDGs

were assessed using landscape pattern
and ES.
• Most QTP's cities improved their SDG
scores to >60 from 2010 to 2020.
• 13 synergies and 6 trade-offs were ob-
served among 69 pairs of SDG indicators.
• 65 % of SDG indicators were significantly
correlated with landscape pattern and ESs
of NNRs.

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

Editor: Fernando A.L. Pacheco Protected areas are essential for the conservation of biodiversity, natural and cultural resources, and contribute to re-
gional and global sustainable development. However, since authorities and stakeholders concern more on the conser-
Keywords: vation targets of protected areas, how to better evaluate the protected areas' contributions to sustainable development
Sustainable development goals
goals (SDGs) remains generally understudied. To fill this knowledge gap, we chose the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) as
Panel data model
the study area, mapped the SDGs in 2010, 2015 and 2020, detecting the interactive relationships among SDGs. Then
Qinghai-Tibet plateau
Nature reserve
we used the landscape pattern indices and ecosystem service (ES) proxies to describe the characteristics of national na-
Landscape pattern indices ture reserves (NNRs), and explore the contributions of protected areas to SDGs using panel data models. The results
showed that from 2010 to 2020, most cities of QTP improved their SDG scores to >60. The three cities with the
best SDG performance improved their average scores by nearly 20 %. Among the 69 pairs correlations of SDG indica-
tors, 13 synergies and 6 trade-offs were observed. About 65 % of the SDG indicators were significantly correlated with
landscape pattern or ESs of NNRs. Carbon sequestration had a significant positive effect on 30 % of the SDG indicators,
while habitat quality had a negative effect on 18 % of the SDG indicators. For the landscape pattern indices, the largest
patch index had a significant positive effect on 18 % of the SDG indicators. This study highlighted that the ESs and
landscape pattern could well quantify the contribution of protected areas to SDGs, which can provide essential impli-
cations for protected area management and regional sustainable development.

⁎ Corresponding author at: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China.
E-mail address: lyh@rcees.ac.cn (Y. Lü).

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163535
Received 20 January 2023; Received in revised form 10 April 2023; Accepted 12 April 2023
Available online 17 April 2023
0048-9697/© 2023 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Y. Liu et al.
1. Introduction
As the core of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) provide a shared blueprint that in-
corporates three dimensions: social, economic and environmental sustain-
ability (United Nations, 2015). These goals are important for eradicating
poverty, reducing hunger, improving health and education, conserve envi-
ronment and increasing social equity, which is the world's roadmap for
achieving sustainable development in this decade (Hametner et al.,
2022). To achieve the SDGs, countries around the world are willing to
drive the transition to sustainability in multiple areas (D’Arco et al., 2021;
Ding et al., 2022; Fu et al., 2019). As the world's most competitive emerging
economy, China attaches great importance to sustainable development (Fu
et al., 2019). In 2016, China released a national plan for the implementa-
tion of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, which can serve as
a model for other developing countries seeking to the process of global im-
plementation. The interactions among SDGs and influencing factors of
SDGs are complex. Scientists have been trying to reveal the synergies and
trade-offs between SDGs (Liu and Yuan, 2023; Zhang et al., 2022b; Zhao
et al., 2021), seek the SDG priorities (Wu et al., 2022), and explore the
influencing factors of SDGs (Liu et al., 2022a; Xu et al., 2022b). Neverthe-
less, these studies have mostly focused on either global or national scales,
making the conclusions failing to inform regional sustainable development
(Zhang et al., 2020).
The protected areas are vital to achieving the SDGs, as they safeguard
ecological conservation and community development to maintain resil-
ience and sustainability (Zhang et al., 2022a). Protected areas are clearly
defined geographical spaces which are recognized and managed through
legal or administrative means to achieve the long-term conservation of na-
ture (Hoffmann, 2022). The protected areas provide significant social and
environmental benefits, and even create employment opportunities (Mi
et al., 2021), contributing to the growth of local economies and poverty al-
leviation by the tourism, planting industry and education (D’Arco et al.,
2021; Danish and Wang, 2018), and are represented an important tool for
biodiversity loss alleviation and ecosystem conservation (Liu et al., 2020).
However, increasing global protected areas has not entirely halted biodi-
versity loss, forest area decrease (FAO, 2022), and many countries still
fall short of meeting the SDGs (Gownaris et al., 2019).
Protected areas are an effective ecological management method
through protecting the landscape, but their contribution to SDGs around
protected areas is not clear. On the one hand, protected areas provide im-
portant ecosystem services (ESs) and thus have important links with re-
gional sustainable development. The interaction between ESs and SDGs
has been extensively detected. Xu et al. (2022b) identified the impact of ur-
banization on the relationship between ESs and SDGs and demonstrated
that the urbanization significantly impact the ESs' contributions to SDGs.
Wood et al. (2017) suggested that ESs could play an important role in real-
izing 41 sub-goals among 12 SDGs. However, there are different voices sug-
gesting that the relationship between ESs and SDGs is not synergistic
(Reyers and Selig, 2020; Xu et al., 2020), indicating a complex mechanism
from ESs to SDGs. On the other hand, the landscape pattern of protected
areas is the basis of ES supply, and may also affect the realization of regional
SDGs, especially in less developed areas and ecological fragile areas (Hou
et al., 2021). As one of the measures of land use management, landscape
pattern optimization has been proved to be an important measure to en-
hance the regional ecological conservation and sustainable development
(Gao and Brayan, 2017; Ouyang et al., 2022; Zhang et al., 2022a). Land-
scape pattern indices, such as largest patch index, edge density, and
perimeter–area ratio, are widely used to identify the spatial pattern of
land cover features of protected areas (Tomaselli et al., 2012). However,
the relationship between landscape pattern and SDGs is still unclear.
China has emphasized that sustainable ecosystems through construct-
ing protected area system are fundamental to human well-being improve-
ment and national development (Chen, 2020). The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
(QTP) is important to the ecological security for the entire Asian continent
(Teng et al., 2018). A variety of protected areas have been established in the
2
Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535
QTP with the highest area percentage of protected areas in China, which
played a crucial role in ecological conservation. However, environmental
pollution, biodiversity loss, soil erosion and other issues related to social de-
velopment and ecological conservation have emerged in the QTP due to cli-
mate change and human activities (Hua et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2022a).
These issues have influenced regional SDGs (Geldmann et al., 2019). On
October 12, 2021, China officially established its first group of five national
parks, marking the beginning of the reshaping of the protected area system
with national parks as the main body (Zhang et al., 2022a). Focusing on
protected areas and revealing their contributions to the SDGs will be of
great reference for the future optimization of the protected area system.
Therefore, evaluating and understanding SDGs and related protected area
management to local sustainable development reveals whether the policy
match with SDGs, which can provide useful information for authorities
and other stakeholders (Schmidt et al., 2019).
We propose that both ESs and landscape pattern of protected areas
should be considered simultaneously when evaluating the protected
areas' contribution to SDGs. QTP was thus chosen as a case to assess the con-
tributions of protected areas to SDGs. To identify the SDG performance and
SDG interaction, we scored 17 SDG indicators of prefecture-level munici-
palities in the QTP from 2010 to 2020 and detected their relationships
through Spearman correlation analysis. Then five typical ESs (carbon se-
questration, water yield, soil retention, habitat provision, and landscape
aesthetics) and five landscape pattern indices (total area, largest patch
index, edge density, contagion index, Shannon's diversity index) were cho-
sen to represent the ecological effect of NNR, we evaluated the NNRs' con-
tributions to SDGs using panel data model. In doing so, our study enables
policy makers to deepen understanding of how well SDGs are performing
and the current role of protected areas in achieving SDGs, so that planning
can efficiently target the appropriate dimensions of SDGs.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Study area
The QTP located in southwest China (Fig. 1a) and is often called the
“Roof of the World”, the “Water Tower of Asia”, and the “Third Pole”.
The average elevation of the QTP is over 4000 m (Fig. 1b), and the QTP
covers an area of >2.5 million km2 (Liu et al., 2020). The QTP thins
about 2800 km long, north and south about 300–1500 km wide. The annual
mean temperature and precipitation are 1.61 °C and 413.6 mm, respec-
tively. The plateau plays an essential role in ecological security and is also
the foundation for highland species husbandry (The State Council
Information Office of the People's Republic of China, 2018). The plateau
spans Qinghai, Tibet, Gansu, Sichuan, Xinjiang and Yunnan Provinces or
autonomous regions, with 38 prefecture-level municipalities (Fig. 1c). By
2018, China had established 155 nature reserves at various levels in the
QTP, including 41 NNRs and 64 provincial ones. Nature reserves cover an
area of 822, 400 km2, similar to 31.63 % of the QTP. Nature reserves
have significantly promoted the ecological security of the plateau and re-
gional sustainability, and improved human well-beings (The State Council
Information Office of the People's Republic of China, 2018).
2.2. Quantifying ES supply
Carbon sequestration, water yield, soil retention, habitat provision, and
landscape aesthetics were chosen to comprehensively characterize the ES
supply of NNRs in the QTP. The selection was based on following princi-
ples: (1) these ESs could reflect the ecological information of NNRs;
(2) these ESs play an essential role and in accordance with ecological im-
portance of QTP; (3) these ESs could be quantified and compared among
different cities.
2.2.1. Carbon sequestration
In the study, the carbon sequestration was evaluated by net primary
productivity (NPP). NPP is the amount of organic matter accumulated by
Y. Liu et al.
Fig. 1. The location (a), national nature reserves (b) and prefecture-level municipalities (c) of the QTP.
vegetation in unit area and unit time, which is an important link in the car-
bon feedback between the terrestrial biosphere and the atmosphere (Liu
et al., 2018; Xu et al., 2022b). NPP values were obtained using the Carnegie
Ames Stanford Approach (Potter et al., 1993), which is widely used to eval-
uated carbon sequestration because the approach is relatively simple, and
most parameters can be calculated from remote sensing images. The
CASA model is described as follows:
NPP ¼ ∑½APARðtÞ  εðt Þ (1)
where APAR(t) is the absorbed photosynthetically active radiation in
month t, ε(t) is the light utilization efficiency in month t. The detailed cal-
culations for parameters refer to references (Mohamed et al., 2004; Zhu
et al., 2007).
2.2.2. Water yield
Fresh water supply is an essential ES that contribute to human
wellbeing. Moreover, in view of the important role of QTP in the Asian
water cycle, water sources within the region are often included in the cov-
erage of NNRs. In this study, water yield (WY) was obtained using the mod-
ule in InVEST (3.7.0). The model calculated WY values based on Budyko
curve and meteorological parameters, which evaluates the annual value
in each unit of the targeted region. The module uses data mainly on precip-
itation, reference evapotranspiration, land use map, root depth, plant avail-
able water content (Liu et al., 2019). The annual water yield for each pixel
on the landscape is as follows:
WY ðxÞ ¼ PðxÞ  AET ðxÞ (2)
where WY(x) is the annual water yield for grid x, P(x) is the annual precip-
itation on pixel x, and AET(x) is the annual actual evapotranspiration for
pixel x. For vegetated land cover, the evapotranspiration portion of the
water balance is based on an expression of the Budyko curve. The
3
Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535
parameter estimation refers to previous studies (Zhang et al., 2007; Zhao
et al., 2018).
2.2.3. Soil retention
Soil loss could cause ecological problems by affecting the health of eco-
systems. Soil retention (SR) becomes an important ES for ecological fragile
areas. SR can be estimated from the difference between potential and actual
soil erosion. In this study, the sediment delivery ratio module of InVEST
was employed for SR evaluation. The module simulates the amount of an-
nual soil loss on grid point x, USLE(x), based on the revised universal soil
loss equation:
USLEðxÞ ¼ RðxÞ  K ðxÞ  LSðxÞ  C ðxÞ  PðxÞ (3)
SRðxÞ ¼ SLPðxÞ  USLEðxÞ (4)
where R(x) is rainfall erosivity, K(x) is soil erodibility, LS(x) is the slope
length-gradient factor, C(x) is a crop-management factor, P(x) is the sup-
port practice factor, SR(x) is soil retention, and SLP(x) is potential soil
loss. The parameters can be calculated using the method of previous refer-
ences (Hou et al., 2021; Liu et al., 2019).
2.2.4. Habitat quality
Biodiversity conservation is a key goal of protected area system. QTP is
also a global biodiversity hotspot, where habitat quality (HQ) plays an es-
sential role in biodiversity maintenance. This study used HQ as a proxy
for biodiversity, identifying the extent of habitat and vegetation types
across the study area, and the degradation state (Natural Capital Project,
2022). The HQ module of InVEST was employed to combine land use
data and threats to biodiversity to simulate HQ maps (Natural Capital
Project, 2022).
!!
Dzxj
Qxj ¼ H j 1  (5)
Dzxf þ K z
Y. Liu et al.
where Qxj is the habitat quality in parcel x that is in landscape j, Hj is the
habitat suitability of landscape j, Dxj is the total threat level in parcel x
with landscape j, z is 2.5, k constant is the half-saturation constant. The de-
tails of the parameter settings are given in the reference (Natural Capital
Project, 2022).
2.2.5. Landscape aesthetics
The scenic views of landscape of protected areas could contribute to the
well-being of local communities and tourism in many aspects. Landscape
aesthetics (LA) plays an essential role in boosting local economies by
attracting tourists. This study used the scenic quality module of InVEST
3.7.0 to assess LA. The module estimates impacted visibility values in sev-
eral steps: 1) calculate the visibility for each point and determine the
value of the visibility amenity/disamenity by weighting the visibility and
applying the valuation function defined in the user interface; 2) sum the
valuation rasters to create a weighted aggregate; 3) divide the weighted, ag-
gregate valuation raster into quartiles to create a raster representing visual
quality; 4) weight and sum the visibility rasters from all structures points to
create a weighted sum of the number of visible points. The parameters
needed to run the module are detailed described in the reference (Natural
Capital Project, 2022).
2.3. Specification of landscape pattern
The richness of ESs in protected areas depends not only on human
choices, but also on the landscape pattern and structure. According to the
meaning of indices and their ability to depict landscape patterns of NNRs,
this study selected five landscape pattern indices, including total area
(TA), largest patch index (LPI), edge density (ED), contagion index
(CONTAG), and Shannon's diversity index (SHDI). Specifically, TA repre-
sents total landscape area, which is one of the most crucial indices when
planning protected area system. LPI refers to the proportion of the largest
patch of a certain type in the landscape, which can indirectly reflect the di-
rection of human distribution. ED represents the edge length of unit area in
the landscape. CONTAG describes the agglomeration degree or extension
trend of various land use types, including spatial information. SHDI equals
minus the sum, across all land use types, of the proportional abundance of
each land use type multiplied by the proportion. SHDI represents landscape
heterogeneity and is particularly sensitive to the imbalanced distribution of
patch types in study area. Landscape indices were estimated for each NNR
by using the Fragstats 4.0 for ArcGIS in landscape level.
2.4. SDG mapping
The principle of selecting SDG indicators is to cover SDGs which may be
related with protected areas as many as possible based on the availability of
data. The annual data were collected from each prefecture-level city in the
QTP. The SDG indicators selected and constructed in the study are pre-
sented in Table S1. In order to make comparisons between SDG indicators,
we used the Min-Max normalization method to convert each SDG indicator
into a value ranging from 0 to 100 (Liu et al., 2020). To minimize the pos-
sible effect of extreme values on both tails of the data distribution, we reset
the maximum and minimum values for each indicator by referring to the
references (Xu et al., 2020). For the target values, we first selected an abso-
lute or relatively quantifiable threshold for SDG indicator, such as SDG
1.2.1, 1.5.1, 3.9.1, 6.1.1, 8.5.2, 11.5.2, 11.6.2 and 15.3.1. If there is no
obvious threshold for some SDG indicators, the average of the five best-
performing cities in the QTP was selected as the target value of SDG indica-
tors, such as SDG 2.3.1, 2.3.2, 8.1.1, 8.5.1, 8.9.1, 10.1.1, 11.7.1, 15.1.1 and
15.1.2. What needs to be emphasized is that when we focus on the index
comparison of the cities in the QTP. The target values determined by this
method are not necessarily applicable to other regions. Moreover, using
the arithmetic mean of the five best-performing cities to set targets does
not mean that those areas have achieved the corresponding targets. This ap-
proach is only exploratory assessment within the constraints of data avail-
ability. Regarding baseline values, we selected the lowest 2.5th-percentile
4
Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535
performer by referring previous studies (Liu and Yuan, 2023; Sachs et al.,
2018). The equation used is as follows:
xi  xmin
x¼  100 (6)
xmax  xmin
where xi is the raw SDG indicator value, xmax and xmin represent the target
value and baseline value, respectively, and x is the normalized value. After
data normalization, all SDG indicators can be compared, and a higher value
of SDG indicators represents a higher level of SDG achievement, that is, a
better performance.
2.5. Identifying SDG interactions
Since SDGs were originally conceived as a whole, the complex in-
teractions among SDGs are inevitable. We used the Spearman correla-
tion analysis to identify the relationship between SDG indicators of
prefecture-level cities. At the same time, we conducted significance
test to identify the relationship between SDGs. If a correlation coeffi-
cient is larger than 0.5, the relationship between SDGs is synergy. If a
correlation coefficient is smaller than −0.5, the relationship between
SDGs is trade-off (Liu and Yuan, 2023).
2.6. Expounding the contributions of NNRs to SDGs
We used panel data model to identify the contributions of NNRs to SDGs
in the QTP. In contrast to general linear regression models, panel data
models have been widely used because they not only consider the common-
ality of the cross-sectional data, but also allow for the analysis of the indi-
vidual particular effects of the cross-sectional factors. In our models, SDG
indicators were used as the explained variables and landscape pattern indi-
ces and ecosystem service indicators of NNRs were used as explanatory var-
iables. By examining the relationship between each SDG indicator, ESs and
landscape pattern indices of NNRs, we can determine which model is bet-
ter. The Hausman test was performed to help select the fixed or random ef-
fect model. When the test value is <0.05, the hypothesis is rejected at the
5 % significance level, and the fixed effect model is superior to the random
effect model (Ouyang et al., 2022). It was finally determined that SDG
1.2.1, 2.3.1, 2.3.2, 3.9.1, 6.1.1, 8.5.1, 11.5.2 and 15.1.1 applied fixed effect
models, and SDG 1.5.1, 8.1.1, 8.5.2, 8.9.1, 11.5.2, 11.6.2, 11.7.1, 15.1.2
and 15.3.1 applied random effect models. In each model, we used loga-
rithmic transformations to remove the effects of heteroscedasticity
and different orders of magnitude (Liu and Yuan, 2023).
2.7. Data sources
The data sources used for SDG indicator calculations are described in
Table S1. The land use maps with resolution of 30 m were observed from
RESDC (http://www.resdc.cn). The digital elevation model and MODIS
data were downloaded from GDCS (http://www.gscloud.cn). The soil
parameters were obtained from the China Soil Map-based Harmonized
World Soil Database (http://westdc.westgis.accn). The meteorological
parameters were retrieved from China Meteorological Administration
(http://data.cma.cn).
3. Results
3.1. Spatiotemporal variations of SDG scores
The scores vary across SDG indicators in the QTP (Fig. 2). The Keshan
disease incidence per 10,000 population (SDG 3.9.1) was the highest,
with an average score of 90.86. The affected persons attributed to disasters
per 10,000 population (SDG 1.5.1), the direct economic losses caused by
natural disasters as a percentage of GDP (SDG 11.5.2) and the days of air
quality equal to or above Grade II (SDG 11.6.2) were high, close to the
targeted values with average scores of above 74.11. The gross agricultural
Y. Liu et al. Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535

Fig. 2. Box diagram of 17 SDG indicators. All scores were converted to scores of 0–100, with 100 indicating the best performance. The data were collected in 2010,
2015 and 2020.

product (SDG 2.3.1) achieved a score of 16.14, which was the lowest of all Fig. 3 indicates the score difference between 2010 and 2020 of each
SDG indicators. The average money wage (SDG 8.5.1) and the urban regis- city. For SDG 1.2.1, 2.3.2, 6.1.1, and 8.5.1, almost all cities obtained higher
tered unemployment rate (SDG 8.5.2) achieved a score of 28.19 and 24.42, scores in 2020 than those in 2010. For SDG 10.1.1, the scores of 2020 of
respectively, which was relatively low. each city significantly decreased compared with 2010. In addition, most

Fig. 3. The score difference between 2020 and 2010 of each city. Green squares demonstrate that the SDG indicator in 2020 is higher than that in 2010, while red squares is
opposite. White squares represent no change.

5
Y. Liu et al. Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535

cities exhibited an upward trend in SDG 1.5.1, 2.3.1, 8.9.1, 8.5.2, 15.1.1, which showed the most growth. Qinghai and Xinjiang followed with 11
and 11.7.1. Moreover, there were significant differences of scores among and 10 SDG indicators, respectively. Gansu and Tibet, however, each had
provinces in the QTP. The number of SDG indicator in Yunnan was 12, 9 SDG indicators of degradation.

Fig. 4. Average performance of municipalities on SDGs in 2010 (a), 2015 (b) and 2020 (c).

6
Y. Liu et al.
In terms of spatial pattern, the SDG score indicated a pattern of low in
the west and northeast and high in the east in 2010 (Fig. 4a). Specifically,
the three highest score cities were Haidong, Guoluo and Chengdu, with
an average SDG score of 57.51. The lowest three cities were all distributed
in the east where the average SDG score was 37.91. With regional develop-
ment, most cities experienced an increase in SDG scores in 2015 (Fig. 4b).
But there were still some cities with moderate growth, which resulted in rel-
atively low scores across the QTP, such as Bayingol and Linxia. Xining,
Diqing and Nujiang were the top three cities with the highest score in
2015, with an average SDG score of 61.34. Moving forward to 2020, the
spatial pattern of SDG score had further changed. Most cities in the QTP
scored >60, located in the west, south and east (Fig. 4c). The three highest
score cities were Linzhi, Diqing and Chengdu, with an average SDG score of
68.83. However, the SDG scores of Lanzhou and Linxia, although they had
risen to 49.83 and 48.59, respectively, remained the lowest in 2020.
Fig. 5. Spearman correlation coefficient of SDG indicators. Blue circles and coefficients indicate a positive correlation. Red circles and coefficients indicate a negative
correlation.
Note: *, p < 0.05; **, p < 0.005; ***, p < 0.0001.
7
Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535
3.2. SDG interactions
Among the 17 SDG indicators, 40 pairs exhibit significant positive
correlations while 29 pairs exhibited significant negative correlations
(Fig. 5). The number of positive correlations was higher than that of nega-
tive ones, indicating that the prospect for achieving the SDGs in the QTP are
bright. Among 69 pairs correlations, 13 synergies and 6 trade-offs were ob-
served. Furthermore, among 17 SDG indicators, SDG 1.2.1 (rural poverty
incidence), SDG 2.3.2 (per capita disposable income of rural residents),
and SDG 8.5.1 (average money wage), all had synergistic relationships
with the 4 indicators and the mutual promotion effect was evident. How-
ever, there was a trade-off between SDG 10.1.1 (ratio of income of urban
and rural residents), and the three indicators, indicating that SDG 10.1.1
is an important indicator in conflict with the other indicators (i.e., SDG
2.3.1, 2.3.2 and 11.7.1).
Y. Liu et al. Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535

3.3. NNRs' contributions to SDGs
Panel data model analysis of 17 SDG indicators showed that 11 indica-
tors were significantly correlated with landscape pattern and ESs of NNRs
in the QTP (Table 1). 8 SDG indicators were significantly affected by the
ESs of NNRs, while 8 were affected by landscape patterns. Specifically,
the NPP of NNRs significantly affected 6 SDG indicators, namely, SDG
1.2.1, 3.9.1, 6.1.1, 8.5.2, 11.5.2 and 15.1.2. HQ and SR were the other
two ESs that affected the SDG indicators and had a significant effect on
the three SDG indicators, respectively. In terms of landscape pattern indi-
ces, TA and LPI affected five and four SDG indicators, respectively. TA
had a significant positive effect on SDG 1.5.1 and SDG 8.5.1, but a signifi-
cant negative effect on SDG 2.3.1, 2.3.2 and 15.1.1. LPI had a significant
negative effect on SDG 2.3.1 and a significant positive effect on SDG
6.1.1, 11.5.2 and 15.1.2. Additionally, CONTAG and SHDI were found to
have a significant effect on only one SDG indicator, SDG 15.1.1, forest
cover rate and SDG 15.1.2, the area of wetland ecological nature reserve ac-
counts for the proportion of forestry system nature reserve area.
4. Discussion
population scored the highest. This indicates that the prevention and con-
trol of Keshan disease in the QTP is effective. Additionally, SDG 1.5.1,
11.5.2 and 11.6.2 all scored high, mainly due to the effective disaster pre-
vention and mitigation efforts and the blue sky protection campaign carried
out in China in recent years (Qiu, 2014; Shi et al., 2016; Wang et al., 2021).
At the provincial level, the number of increasing SDG indicators in both
Tibet and Gansu from 2010 to 2020 was eight, the lowest among the prov-
inces in the QTP, putting SDG performance in a situation close to 50–50
(Fig. 3). One possible reason is that Tibet and Gansu have lagged in eco-
nomic and social development compared to other regions, leading to a lag
in the SDG performance, with their GDP ranking 22nd and last among
China's 31 provinces and municipalities in 2020, respectively. Previous
studies have generally taken a national or provincial scale and lacked sup-
port for the sustainability of specific cities (Wu et al., 2022; Xu et al.,
2020). At the municipal level, our study indicated that most cities (about
84 %) improved twelve to fourteen SDG indicators from 2010 to 2020
(Figs. 3 and 4). However, Lhasa, Chengdu and Deyang all had 6 SDG in-
dicator deterioration. Therefore, our study also points out areas of
weakness for these cities to implement targeted measures to improve
their level of sustainability.

4.1. SDG performance of the QTP 4.2. Relationship between SDG indicators

This study could assist in evaluating and understanding the SDG perfor-
mance. For the QTP overall, the performance of SDGs varied, and some
were at relatively low levels, such as SDG 2.3.1, 15.1.2, 8.5.2 and 8.5.1
(Fig. 2). Among them, SDG 15.1.2, the area of wetland ecological nature re-
serve accounts for the proportion of forestry system nature reserve area, is
limited by natural conditions, so there is no need to pay too much attention
to it. However, SDG 2.3.1, 8.5.2 and 15.1.2 involve agricultural develop-
ment, employment and people's income. Policy makers are therefore
advised to deal with it through agricultural modernization (Liu et al.,
2022b), creating employment opportunities (D’Arco et al., 2021), strength-
ening the economic compensation (Zhang et al., 2020), and broadening
residents' income channels (Xu et al., 2014). Our results showed that
the performance of SDG 3.9.1 for Keshan disease incidence per 10,000
There were more synergies than tradeoffs between SDG indicators in
this study (Fig. 5). This finding has been confirmed by other studies (Liu
and Yuan, 2023; Weitz et al., 2018; Zhao et al., 2021), but contrary to
some previous studies that tradeoffs are dominating (Bowen et al., 2017;
Gao and Brayan, 2017). Urban and Hametner (2022) demonstrated that
the synergistic relationship between SDG 8 and SDG 12 was found in
Austria. At the same time, they also found that SDG 15, 2 and 6 produced
a synergistic relationship within the economy-environment nexus, but no
significance was detected in our results. Fu et al. (2019) divided 17 SDGs
into three groups, including “Essential Needs” “Objectives”, and “Gover-
nance”, based on the theory of coupled human and natural systems. SDG
indicators selected in our study mostly belong to “Essential Needs” (SDG
6 and SDG 15) and “Objectives” (SDG 1, 3, 8 and 10). Zhang et al.

Table 1
Estimation results of the panel data models.
SDG 1.2.1 SDG 1.5.1 SDG 2.3.1 SDG 2.3.2 SDG 3.9.1 SDG 6.1.1 SDG 8.5.1 SDG 8.5.2 SDG 11.5.2 SDG 15.1.1 SDG 15.1.2

NPP 0.229⁎ −0.042 −0.257 −0.172 −0.809⁎ 0.186⁎ −0.206 0.497⁎⁎ 0.141⁎⁎⁎ −0.381 1.889⁎⁎⁎
(0.023) (0.435) (0.405) (0.213) (0.015) (0.010) (0.237) (0.007) (0.000) (0.261) (0.000)
WY 0.012 −0.072 −0.117 −0.085 0.060 0.005 −0.196 −0.215 −0.057 −0.018 0.348
(0.882) (0.104) (0.587) (0.440) (0.818) (0.932) (0.157) (0.145) (0.066) (0.896) (0.372)
SR −0.050 −0.009 0.006 0.041 0.213 −0.070⁎ 0.006 −0.154 −0.002 0.096⁎ −0.444⁎
(0.263) (0.709) (0.067) (0.514) (0.149) (0.034) (0.940) (0.060) (0.930) (0.016) (0.021)
HQ −0.250 0.059 −0.235 −0.017 1.007 −0.168 0.217 −0.701⁎ −0.175⁎ 0.195 −2.203⁎⁎
(0.161) (0.541) (0.629) (0.944) (0.090) (0.187) (0.487) (0.034) (0.0112) (0.301) (0.008)
LA −0.011 0.036⁎ −0.114 0.010 0.142 0.025 0.060 0.086 0.004 0.052⁎ 0.084
(0.702) (0.025) (0.132) (0.803) (0.140) (0.228) (0.241) (0.114) (0.737) (0.045) (0.539)
TA −0.043 0.045⁎ −0.463⁎⁎⁎ −0.148⁎ 0.036 0.015 0.141⁎ 0.004 0.017 −12.1285⁎⁎ −0.006
(0.288) (0.049) (0.000) (0.011) (0.789) (0.611) (0.049) (0.958) (0.287) (0.003) (0.978)
LPI 0.009 −0.019 −0.935⁎ −0.108 −0.356 0.334⁎⁎ 0.004 0.278 0.153⁎ −0.2624 1.555⁎
(0.958) (0.832) (0.027) (0.629) (0.499) (0.005) (0.988) (0.344) (0.018) (0.132) (0.046)
ED −0.336 0.050 −0.445 −0.176 −0.183 −0.017 0.165 −0.109 −0.044 0.083 −0.946
(0.057) (0.603) (0.320) (0.469) (0.749) (0.889) (0.584) (0.730) (0.517) (0.498) (0.199)
CONTAG 0.090 −0.096 −0.789 0.251 0.882 0.151 0.037 0.101 −0.107 0.445⁎ −0.767
(0.788) (0.608) (0.360) (0.608) (0.425) (0.522) (0.949) (0.870) (0.506) (0.042) (0.599)
SHDI 0.392 −0.199 −0.275 0.195 −0.284 0.302 −0.438 0.125 0.088 0.008 2.518⁎
(0.088) (0.110) (0.643) (0.539) (0.705) (0.063) (0.270) (0.764) (0.321) (0.963) (0.016)
Cons 3.707 5.639⁎⁎⁎ 13.570⁎⁎ 3.531 1.813 1.274 4.306 3.326 4.534⁎⁎⁎ 10.037⁎⁎ −4.461
(0.058) (0.000) (0.008) (0.195) (0.773) (0.346) (0.197) (0.339) (0.000) (0.002) (0.600)
N 70 70 71 70 72 70 71 70 66 71 70
R2 0.210 0.322 0.490 0.172 0.162 0.309 0.287 0.362 0.300 0.547 0.125
Type FE RE FE FE FE FE FE RE FE FE RE

Notes: N represents the sample size; p-values in parentheses; FE denotes a fixed effect model; RE denotes a random effect model.
⁎ p < 0.05.
⁎⁎ p < 0.01.
⁎⁎⁎ p < 0.001.

8
Y. Liu et al.
(2022b) demonstrated that SDG 6 and SDG 15 played a significant role in
the “Essential Needs”, SDG 1, 5 and 10 played a significant role in the “Ob-
jectives”, and found that the SDGs in “Essential Needs” & “Objectives” gen-
erally showed synergies in the QTP, which is why our results were similar.
In addition, in recent years, national policy guidance has been issued for the
QTP. That is, ecological conservation is at the core, and the construction of
protected areas is considered an essential tool for ecological conservation
(Xu et al., 2022a). Through measures such as sustainable livelihood and
green industry development, the concept of ecological conservation has
been integrated into multiple dimensions of social and economic develop-
ment (Li et al., 2020; Mi et al., 2021). This may be another reason why
paired SDG indicator are mostly synergies.
4.3. Protected areas' contributions to SDGs and management implications
Most previous research on the SDGs in China has been done from the
perspective of an comprehensive analysis of society (Xu et al., 2020;
Zhang et al., 2022b; Zhao et al., 2021), or economic and social aspects
(Liu et al., 2022a). This study, by focusing on protected areas in plateau
area, provides a comprehensive analysis of the sustainability of the SDGs
in the QTP with available data. Protected areas are crucial conservation
strategies and have socioeconomic impacts on people living in and around
them. The spread of benefits to areas outside protected areas is often negli-
gible (den Braber et al., 2018). Table 1 showed that landscape indices, rep-
resenting dominant patch significance (LPI), dominant patch connectivity
(CONTAG) and landscape fragmentation (SHDI), significantly increased a
certain number of SDGs, indicating that protected area has a certain promo-
tion effect on the realization of regional SDGs through landscape pattern.
Previous studies on landscape pattern have also found that suitable land-
scape patterns are beneficial for economic development and ecological
conservation (Fohrer et al., 2005; Fu and Zhou, 2008; Sharma and Singh,
1994), which is similar to the SDGs to some extent. However, the increase
of TA (total area of NNRs) could reduce the SDG 2.3.1 (gross agricultural
product) and SDG 2.3.2 (per capita disposable income of rural residents),
which indicated that the establishment of protected areas would reduce
the local agricultural development and farmers' income to some extent.
This finding is consistent with a previous study (Brockington and Wilkie,
2015). The construction of protected areas will inevitably compress
the environment and opportunities for agricultural development, result-
ing in the above situation.
This study can help protected area management perform more targeted
policies. For the QTP, natural habitat is an essential basis for maintaining
biodiversity (Liu et al., 2020). But our results indicated that protected
areas with higher habitat quality tended to have higher unemployment
and higher natural disasters as a percentage of GDP (Table 1). This is be-
cause protected areas are often under strict ecological conservation mea-
sures, and effective responses to natural disasters require a combination
of social and engineering measures, which is where these areas are weak.
Based on the characteristics of regional natural disasters, more targeted
management can be implemented in protected areas to improve response
capacity. In addition, NPP significantly increased five SDG indicators and
SR and LA each increased two SDG indicators (Table 1). The above demon-
strated that a synergistic relationship between ES supply of protected area
and regional sustainable development could be achieved, which is consis-
tent with previous studies in China (Liu et al., 2022a; Xu et al., 2022b;
Zhang et al., 2022a). However, under the dual effects of human activities
and climate change, the change of NPP in the QTP may change from up-
ward to downward, and the increase of NPP may also cause local water re-
source overconsumption, thus threatening the sustainable development
(Ma et al., 2022). In the UK, as early as around 2002, Scottish National
Park management policies were written to co-ordinate the promotion of so-
cial and economic development in the communities where protected land-
scapes were located with the conservation of natural and cultural heritage
(Janssen, 2009; McCarthy et al., 2002). Studies in the African and
European protected areas suggested that investment should be enhance-
ment in management and involvement of local communities in the
9
Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535
planning and management of protected areas to promote synergies
between ES and local sustainable development (Gatiso et al., 2022). There-
fore, systems-based management, combining ES improvement and land-
scape pattern optimization should be adopted, which has been confirmed
by the study in Southern Italy (D’Arco et al., 2021). To fully achieve
SDGs, we suggest that the construction and planning of protected areas in
the QTP should optimize landscape patterns and enhancing ecosystem
conservation, thus improving ES supply. Also, SDG management needs
to acknowledge and eliminate potential trade-offs between SDGs
(Urban and Hametner, 2022).
4.4. Limitations and future research directions
To promote SDG performance in the QTP, we proposed the “ESs- and
landscape pattern-based assessment” for protected areas' contributions to
SDGs. The data required for our framework is simple, the logic of the anal-
ysis is clear, and it can facilitate and quickly carry out similar studies in
other regions of the world, as well as provide an effective reference for
studies of the correlation between protected areas and SDGs. In the study,
landscape pattern indices and ES proxies were used to represent the charac-
teristics of protected areas, and to establish a relationship with SDG indica-
tors. Applying such an analytical framework is to seek out and determine
the protected areas' contributions to SDGs. However, due to data limita-
tions, many characteristics of protected areas, such as flagship species, con-
servation objectives and development plans, have not been considered.
Therefore, the subsequent analysis of the protected area-SDG linkage mech-
anism still needs to be strengthened. Additionally, the relationship between
ESs and SDGs can be affected by other factors such as urbanization, ecosys-
tem health, and climate change which has been proven to have a significant
impact on the relationship between ESs and economic and ecological SDGs
(Hernández-Blanco et al., 2022; Manley and Egoh, 2022; Xu et al., 2022b).
The complex interaction mechanisms and drivers between ESs and SDGs
deserve attention in future studies. Moreover, starting in 2015, China
launched 10 pilot national parks to conserve the natural environment and
biodiversity. Both the Three-River-Source National Park and the Qilian
Mountain National Park are involved in integrating various nature reserves
in the pilot project to protect the ecology and improve human welfare in the
QTP. Previous studies have shown the impact of national park construction
on residents' income and tourism development in the SDGs (D’Arco et al.,
2021; Zhang et al., 2022a). However, this study was limited to data acqui-
sition and failed to include pilot areas of national parks in the evaluation.
We will further explore the impact of national parks on the achievement
of regional Sustainable Development Goals.
5. Conclusions
Evaluating the NNRs' contributions to SDGs can assist understand the
linkage mechanism between SDG performance and ecological conservation
instruments. Since most SDG studies do not consider the impact of
protected areas on SDGs, it is difficult to provide comprehensive support
for the formulation of regional sustainable development policies. To solve
this question, we assessed and analyzed spatiotemporal variations of
SDGs and identifying the contributions of NNRs to achieving SDGs in
QTP, considering ESs and landscape pattern. Our results indicate that the
overall level of SDG performance in the QTP has been effectively improved
from 2010 to 2020, but several cities are still at low levels. The top three cit-
ies with the best SDG performance improved their average scores by nearly
20 %. The number of paired SDG indicators with synergistic relationships
was significantly higher than the number of trade-off ones, suggesting
that multiple SDGs can be jointly promoted by targeted management deci-
sions. Furthermore, about 65 % of SDG indicators were significantly corre-
lated with landscape pattern and ESs of NNRs, which gave us the possibility
to enhance regional sustainability through the optimization and manage-
ment of protected area system. Our “ESs- and landscape pattern- based as-
sessment” framework not only provides a way to assess the contributions
Y. Liu et al.
of protected areas to SDGs, but it also provides appropriate support for de-
cision makers, by identifying weaknesses in SDG performance in cities.
Supplementary data to this article can be found online at https://doi.
org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.163535.
CRediT authorship contribution statement
Yuanxin Liu and Yihe Lü designed the study. Yuanxin Liu and Xiao
Zhang collected the data, formed most of the data analysis, and drafted
the manuscript. Bojie Fu coordinated and supervised the study.
Data availability
Data will be made available on request.
Declaration of competing interest
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial inter-
ests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the
work reported in this paper.
Acknowledgments
We thank the editor and anonymous reviewers for their constructive
comments, which helped us to improve the manuscript. This work was sup-
ported by the Second Tibetan Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research
(STEP) program (2019QZKK0308) and the Strategic Priority Research Pro-
gram of Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA20020402).
References
Bowen, K.J., Cradock-Henry, N.A., Koch, F., Patterson, J., Häyhä, T., Vogt, J., Barbi, F., 2017.
Implementing the “Sustainable Development Goals”: towards addressing three key gover-
nance challenges—collective action, trade-offs, and accountability. Curr. Opin. Env. Sust.
26–27, 90–96.
Brockington, D., Wilkie, D., 2015. Protected areas and poverty. Philos. Trans. R. Soc. B 370,
20140271.
Chen, H., 2020. Land use trade-offs associated with protected areas in China: current state,
existing evaluation methods, and future application of ecosystem service valuation. Sci.
Total Environ. 711, 134688.
The State Council Information Office of the People's Republic of China, 2018. Ecological Prog-
ress on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Beijing.
D’Arco, M., Lo Presti, L., Marino, V., Maggiore, G., 2021. Is sustainable tourism a goal that
came true? The italian experience of the cilento and vallo di diano National Park. Land
Use Policy 101, 105198.
Danish, Wang, Z., 2018. Dynamic relationship between tourism, economic growth, and envi-
ronmental quality. J. Sustain. Tour. 26, 1928–1943.
den Braber, B., Evans, K.L., Oldekop, J.A., 2018. Impact of protected areas on poverty, ex-
treme poverty, and inequality in Nepal. Conserv. Lett. 11, e12576.
Ding, Y., Zhao, M., Li, Z., Xia, B., Atutova, Z., Kobylkin, D., 2022. Impact of education for sus-
tainable development on cognition, emotion, and behavior in protected areas. Int.
J. Environ. Res. Public Health 19, 9769.
FAO, 2022. Tracking Progress on Food and Agriculture-related SDG Indicators 2022. Rome.
Fohrer, N., Haverkamp, S., Frede, H.G., 2005. Assessment of the effects of land use patterns on
hydrologic landscape functions: development of sustainable land use concepts for low
mountain range areas. Hydrol. Process. 19, 659–672.
Fu, B.J., Wang, S., Zhang, J.Z., Hou, Z.Q., Li, J.H., 2019. Unravelling the complexity in achiev-
ing the 17 sustainable-development goals. Natl. Sci. Rev. 6, 386–388.
Fu, M.C., Zhou, J.H., 2008. Landscape pattern integration and sustainable development in
mining area in urban-rural fringe: a case study of Jinggezhuang mine area in Tangshan.
China Min. Mag. 17, 28–31 (in Chinese).
Gao, L., Brayan, B.A., 2017. Finding pathways to national-scale land-sector sustainability. Na-
ture 544, 217–222.
Gatiso, T.T., Kulik, L., Bachmann, M., Bonn, A., Bösch, L., Freytag, A., Heurich, M.,
Wesche, K., Winter, M., Ordaz-Németh, I., Sop, T., Kühl, H.S., 2022. Sustainable
protected areas: synergies between biodiversity conservation and socioeconomic de-
velopment. People Nat. 4, 893–903.
Geldmann, J., Manica, A., Burgess, N.D., Coad, L., Balmford, A., 2019. A global-level assess-
ment of the effectiveness of protected areas at resisting anthropogenic pressures. Proc.
Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 116, 23209–23215.
Gownaris, N.J., Santora, C.M., Davis, J.B., Pikitch, E.K., 2019. Gaps in protection of im-
portant ocean areas: a spatial meta-analysis of ten global mapping initiatives. Front.
Mar. Sci. 6, 650.
Hametner, M., Kostetckaia, M., Urban, P., Best, A., Doris, K., Landgrebe, R., Scholl, L., Stein,
U., Velten, E.K., Rocchi, A.D., Fries, S., Kohli, A., Petry, C., Steinemann, M., 2022.
10
Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535
Sustainable Development in the European Union—Monitoring Report on Progress To-
wards the SDGs in an EU Context—2022 Edition.
Hernández-Blanco, M., Costanza, R., Chen, H., Jarvis, D., Kubiszewski, I., Montoya, J.,
Sangha, K., Stoeckl, N., Turner, K., deGroot, D., van ‘t Hoff, V., 2022. Ecosystem health,
ecosystem services, and the well-being of humans and the rest of nature. Glob. Chang.
Biol. 28, 5027–5040.
Hoffmann, S., 2022. Challenges and opportunities of area-based conservation in
reaching biodiversity and sustainability goals. Biodivers. Conserv. 31, 325–352.
Hou, Y., Zhao, W., Liu, Y., Yang, S., Hu, X., Cherubini, F., 2021. Relationships of multiple
landscape services and their influencing factors on the Qinghai-Tibet plateau.
Landsc. Ecol. 36, 1987–2005.
Hua, T., Zhao, W., Cherubini, F., Hu, X., Pereira, P., 2021. Sensitivity and future exposure of
ecosystem services to climate change on the Tibetan plateau of China. Landsc. Ecol. 36,
3451–3471.
Janssen, J., 2009. Sustainable development and protected landscapes: the case of the
Netherlands. Int J Sust Dev World 16, 37–47.
Li, S., Zhang, H., Zhou, X., Yu, H., Li, W., 2020. Enhancing protected areas for biodiversity and
ecosystem services in the Qinghai-Tibet plateau. Ecosyst. Serv. 43, 101090.
Liu, H., Mi, Z., Lin, L., Wang, Y., Zhang, Z., Zhang, F., Wang, H., Liu, L., Zhu, B., Cao, G., Zhao,
X., Sanders, N.J., Classen, A.T., Reich, P.B., He, J.-S., 2018. Shifting plant species compo-
sition in response to climate change stabilizes grassland primary production. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 115, 4051–4056.
Liu, X., Yuan, M., 2023. Assessing progress towards achieving the transport dimension of the
SDGs in China. Sci. Total Environ. 858, 159752.
Liu, X., Zhao, W., Liu, Y., Hua, T., Hu, X., Cherubini, F., 2022a. Contributions of ecological
programs to sustainable development goals in linzhi, over the tibetan plateau: a mental
map perspective. Ecol. Eng. 176, 106532.
Liu, Y., Lü, Y., Fu, B., Harris, P., Wu, L., 2019. Quantifying the spatio-temporal drivers of
planned vegetation restoration on ecosystem services at a regional scale. Sci. Total Envi-
ron. 650, 1029–1040.
Liu, Y., Lü, Y., Jiang, W., Zhao, M., 2020. Mapping critical natural capital at a regional scale
spatiotemporal variations and the effectiveness of priority conservation. Environ. Res.
Lett. 15, 124025.
Liu, Y.J., Lv, S., Chen, J., Zhang, J., Qiu, S.J., Hu, Y.F., Ge, Q.S., 2022b. Spatio-temporal dif-
ferentiation of agricultural modernization and its driving mechanism on the Qinghai-
Tibet plateau. Acta Geograph. Sin. 77, 214–227 (in Chinese).
Ma, Z.X., Cui, H.J., Ge, Q.S., 2022. Prediction of net primary productivity change pattern in
China based on vegetation dynamic models. Acta Geograph. Sin. 77 (7), 1821–2836 (in
Chinese).
Manley, K., Egoh, B.N., 2022. Mapping and modeling the impact of climate change on recre-
ational ecosystem services using machine learning and big data. Environ. Res. Lett. 17,
054025.
McCarthy, J., Lloyd, G., Illsley, B., 2002. National Parks in Scotland: balancing environment
and economy. Eur. Plan. Stud. 5, 665–670.
Mi, X., Feng, G., Hu, Y., Zhang, J., Chen, L., Corlett, R.T., Hughes, A.C., Pimm, S., Schmid, B.,
Shi, S., Svenning, J.-C., Ma, K., 2021. The global significance of biodiversity science in
China: an overview. Natl. Sci. Rev. 8, nwab032.
Mohamed, M.A., Babiker, I.S., Chen, Z.M., Ikeda, K., Ohta, K., Kato, K., 2004. The role of cli-
mate variability in the inter-annual variation of terrestrial net primary production (NPP).
Sci. Total Environ. 332, 123–137.
Ouyang, X., Wang, K., Wei, X., 2022. Impacts of urban-rural construction land linkages
on ecosystem services: a case study of dongting Lake area. Acta Ecol. Sin. 42,
8713–8722 (in Chinese).
Potter, C.S., Rerson, J.T., Field, C.B., 1993. Terrestrial ecosystem production: a process model
based on global satellite and surface data. Glob. Biogeochem. Cycles 7, 811–841.
Natural Capital Project, 2022. InVEST 3.12.0.post26+ug.g230fb3d User's Guide, Standford
University, University of Minnesota, Chinese Academy of Sciences, The Nature Conser-
vancy, World Wildlife Fund, and Stockholm Resilience Centre.
Qiu, J., 2014. Fight against smog ramps up. Nature 506, 273–274.
Reyers, B., Selig, E.R., 2020. Global targets that reveal the social–ecological interdependencies
of sustainable development. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 4, 1011–1019.
Sachs, J., Schmidt-Traub, G., Kroll, C., Lafortune, G., Fuller, G., 2018. SDG Index and Dash-
boards Report 2018. Bertelsmann Stiftung and Sustainable Development Solutions Net-
work (SDSN), New York.
Schmidt, K., Martín-López, B., Phillips, P.M., Julius, E., Makan, N., Walz, A., 2019. Key land-
scape features in the provision of ecosystem services: insights for management. Land Use
Policy 82, 353–366.
Sharma, S., Singh, S.P., 1994. Energy use pattern and sustainable development: a case study in
rural landscape of the central Himalaya. Landsc. Urban Plan. 29, 19–24.
Shi, H., Wang, Y., Chen, J., Huisingh, D., 2016. Preventing smog crises in China and globally.
J. Clean. Prod. 112, 1261–1271.
Teng, H., Liang, Z., Chen, S., Liu, Y., Viscarra Rossel, R.A., Chappell, A., Yu, W., Shi, Z., 2018.
Current and future assessments of soil erosion by water on the Tibetan plateau based on
RUSLE and CMIP5 climate models. Sci. Total Environ. 635, 673–686.
Tomaselli, V., Tenerelli, P., Sciandrello, S., 2012. Mapping and quantifying habitat fragmenta-
tion in small coastal areas: a case study of three protected wetlands in Apulia (Italy). En-
viron. Monit. Assess. 184, 693–713.
United Nations, 2015. Transforming our world: the 2030 agenda for sustainable development
New York.
Urban, P., Hametner, M., 2022. The economy-environment nexus: sustainable development
goals interlinkages in Austria. Sustainability 14, 12281.
Wang, S.J., Wei, Y.Q., Niu, C.H., Zhang, Y.F., 2021. Comprehensive risk management of
multiple natural disasters on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. J. Glaciol. Geocryol. 43,
1848–1860.
Weitz, N., Carlsen, H., Nilsson, M., Skånberg, K., 2018. Towards systemic and contextual pri-
ority setting for implementing the 2030 agenda. Sustain. Sci. 13, 531–548.
Y. Liu et al.
Wood, S., Jones, S., Johnson, J., Brauman, K., Chaplin-Kramer, R., Fremier, A., Girvetz, E.,
Gordon, L., Kappel, C., Mandle, L., Mulligan, M., O'Farrell, P., Smith, W., Willemen, L.,
Zhang, W., Declerck, F., 2017. Distilling the role of ecosystem services in the sustainable
development goals. Ecosyst. Serv. 29, 70–82.
Wu, X., Liu, J., Fu, B., Wang, S., Wei, Y., Li, Y., 2022. Bundling regions for promoting sustain-
able development goals. Environ. Res. Lett. 17, 044021.
Xu, K., Wang, X., Wang, J., Wang, J., Ge, R., Tian, R., Chai, H., Zhang, X., Fu, L., 2022a. Effec-
tiveness of protection areas in safeguarding biodiversity and ecosystem services in Tibet
autonomous region. Sci. Rep. 12, 1161.
Xu, Y., Chen, G.J., Wang, Q., 2014. A structural decomposition analysis of rural regional in-
come inequality in the upper branches of Minjiang River, the eastern edge of Qinghai-
Tibetan plateau. Mt. Res. 32, 488–496.
Xu, Z., Chau, S.N., Chen, X., Zhang, J., Li, Y., Dietz, T., Wang, J., Winkler, J.A., Fan, F., Huang,
B., Li, S., Wu, S., Herzberger, A., Tang, Y., Hong, D., Li, Y., Liu, J., 2020. Assessing prog-
ress towards sustainable development over space and time. Nature 577, 74–78.
Xu, Z., Peng, J., Qiu, S., Liu, Y., Dong, J., Zhang, H., 2022b. Responses of spatial relationships
between ecosystem services and the sustainable development goals to urbanization. Sci.
Total Environ. 850, 157868.
Zhang, B., Min, Q., Jiao, W., 2022a. Formulating win-win management plans in Protected
Areas (PAs) based on Key Ecosystem services (KESs): an application in the Shennongjia
National Park, China. J. Environ. Manag. 320, 115831.
11
Science of the Total Environment 881 (2023) 163535
Zhang, J., Wang, S., Pradhan, P., Zhao, W., Fu, B., 2022b. Untangling the interactions among
the sustainable development goals in China. Sci. Bull. 67, 977–984.
Zhang, J., Yin, N., Wang, S., Yu, J., Zhao, W., Fu, B., 2020. A multiple importance–satisfaction
analysis framework for the sustainable management of protected areas: integrating
ecosystem services and basic needs. Ecosyst. Serv. 46, 101219.
Zhang, Y., Liu, C., Tang, Y., Yang, Y., 2007. Trends in pan evaporation and reference and
actual evapotranspiration across the tibetan plateau. J. Geophys. Res. - Atmos. 112,
D12110.
Zhao, M., Peng, J., Liu, Y., Li, T., Wang, Y., 2018. Mapping watershed-level ecosystem service
bundles in the Pearl River Delta, China. Ecol. Econ. 152, 106–117.
Zhao, Z., Cai, M., Wang, F., Winkler, J.A., Connor, T., Chung, M.G., Zhang, J., Yang, H., Xu, Z.,
Tang, Y., Ouyang, Z., Zhang, H., Liu, J., 2021. Synergies and tradeoffs among sustainable
development goals across boundaries in a metacoupled world. Sci. Total Environ. 751,
141749.
Zhu, W., Pan, Y., Zhang, J., 2007. Estimation of net primary productivity of Chinese terrestrial
vegetation based on remote sensing. J. Plant Ecol. 31, 413–424.