The Driving Effects of Ecosystem Services on Urban Ecological Resilience in Urban Agglomeration

Abstract

Urban ecological resilience (UER) is a fundamental requirement for sustainable urban development. Ecosystem services (ESs) support urban resilience in many ways; however, it remains unknown how the various ES types affect UER. In this study, 10 ESs were selected to characterize the 4 types of ES in the Pearl River Delta urban agglomeration (PRD), and the InVEST model, CASA model, and nuclear density analysis were used to evaluate the various ESs. We used a morphological resilience–density resilience–economic resilience framework to assess UER, and the structure equation model was used to explore the effects of ESs on UER. Results showed that: (a) Supporting ecosystem service significantly and positively drives UER through the provision ecosystem service and regulation ecosystem service, while supporting ecosystem service has a negative effect on cultural ecosystem service, and cultural ecosystem service has no significant effect on UER. (b) In 2020, except for water yield, water purification, nature education, and recreation service, the distributions of ESs in the periphery of the study area were higher than those in the central. (c) In the PRD, counties with high economic resilience tend to have lower morphological resilience and density resilience. This empirical study examined the driving effects of various ESs on UER and validated the multilevel guarantee of ESs for urban ecology, which can provide more effective references for the sustainable development of urban agglomerations.