Spatially Heterogeneity Response of Critical Ecosystem Service Capacity to Address Regional Development Risks to Rapid Urbanization: The Case of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Urban Agglomeration in China

Abstract

Urban agglomerations have become the new spatial unit of global economic competition. The intense socioeconomic activities attributed to the development of urban agglomerations are bound to cause damage to the ecosystem services of these urban agglomerations. This study adopts the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration in China as the research object, analyzes the spatiotemporal evolution of its critical ecosystem service capacity to address regional ++-development risks from 2000–2018, and employs the Moran’s I and geographically weighted regression model to explore the spatial correlation and spatial heterogeneity in the responses of urbanization and ecosystem services. The study indicates that (1) from 2000–2018, the ecosystem services of the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration exhibit an increase and then a decline, reaching the highest index in 2015; (2) the ecosystem services reveal obvious spatial heterogeneity with the Yan and Taihang Mountains region as the boundary; (3) built-up area ratio, GDP density, and population density exhibit highly obvious negative correlation driving characteristics on ecosystem services; and (4) the construction land ratio exerts a notable impact on areas with a high ecosystem services, while the spatial response of the effect magnitude of the population and GDP densities is largely influenced by intensive, high-pollution and energy-consuming industries. This article also proposes strategies for the optimization of ecological resources and spatial control, which are dedicated to mitigating the negative impacts of rapid urbanization processes on ecosystem services.