Analysis of the Effect of Ecosystem Services and Urbanization on Human Well-Being in Inner Mongolia Province

Abstract

Ecosystem services and urbanization processes are closely related to human well-being. Understanding the interaction between the three is of great importance for sustainable development. As a case study of northern China, Inner Mongolia Province, we attempt to build an effective framework to quantify human well-being from 1995 to 2020, using the entropy method and evaluating the interaction between ecosystem services, urbanization, and human well-being through the structural equation model. This model tries to understand the interaction between the three, as well as to provide some effective policies for local conditions to improve human well-being. The results showed that: (1) Except for the value of habitat quality, carbon storage and population density fluctuated, other ecosystem services and urbanization indicators have significantly improved at the province scale from 1995 to 2020. The ecosystem services indicators revealed differences between the western and eastern regions, while the high value of urbanization indicators showed a dispersed distribution. (2) Compared with 1995, human well-being improved significantly during the last twenty-five years, during which ecological human well-being increased about 30%, economic human well-being increased about 250%, and social human well-being increased about 170%. (3) Although the path coefficients revealed that ecosystem services and urbanization can significantly promote human well-being (ecosystem service: 0.517, urbanization: 0.878), urbanization had a significantly negative effect on ecosystem services with a path coefficient of −0.608. Taking ecosystem services and urbanization into consideration when studying human well-being can not only help to quantify the effects of human activities and natural resources on human well-being, but also to understand the driving mechanisms behind them. The results indicated that identifying the effect of natural resources and human activities on human well-being is beneficial for guiding effective sustainable development policies.