Identifying ecological priority areas for synergistic conservation across scales in the Asian Water Tower region
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Published version
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
The region containing 17 Asian countries located on and around the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (Asian Water Tower) is experiencing a serious ecological crisis, representing a major challenge for both Asian and global ecological conservation. Identifying and synergizing multiscale ecological conservation priorities for this region can promote progress towards the goals proposed by the post-2020 global biodiversity framework (e.g., protecting 30% of the planet) and Sustainable Development Goal 15 (life on land). We mapped the importance of and interactions among five key ecosystem services (ESs) (water conservation, carbon sequestration, sand fixation, soil conservation, and biodiversity conservation) across this region and identified areas where synergistic ESs were present. We further identified synergistic national and regional conservation priority areas. The areas with “high importance” of the composite ESs accounted for 18.9% of the total region. Seventy-two percent of this area was found to have an overlap of at least two ESs. Approximately 33.3% of the study region was identified as a regional conservation priority area, which can be implemented synergistically in each country. Approximately 22.5% of the land in the priority area was nonecological land, which can significantly compromise the importance of ESs. A set of actions to support achieving global conservation goals, such as strengthening the control of anthropogenic activities in priority conservation areas, providing additional efforts and assistance to some key countries, and developing effective ecological compensation schemes, was provided.
Date Issued
2023
Date Acceptance
2023-03-01
Citation
Ecosystem Health and Sustainability, 2023, 9, pp.1-13
ISSN
2332-8878
Publisher
American Association for the Advancement of Science
Start Page
1
End Page
13
Journal / Book Title
Ecosystem Health and Sustainability
Volume
9
Copyright Statement
© 2023 Guangjin Zhou
et al. Exclusive Licensee Ecological
Society of China. No claim to original
U.S. Government Works. Distributed
under a Creative Commons
Attribution License
(CC BY 4.0).
et al. Exclusive Licensee Ecological
Society of China. No claim to original
U.S. Government Works. Distributed
under a Creative Commons
Attribution License
(CC BY 4.0).
License URL
Identifier
https://spj.science.org/doi/10.34133/ehs.0036
Publication Status
Published
Article Number
0036
Date Publish Online
2023-03-01