Context: The establishment of an ecosystem health assessment framework from a human–environment view is vital to landscape sustainability. Although several studies have improved the assessment framework by integrating ecosystem services (ESs) supply or demand, consideration of the sustainable supply of ESs is lacking. Objectives: The objective of this paper is to improve the current methodological framework by integrating ecological integrity and the sustainable supply of ESs to establish an ecosystem health assessment framework. Methods: An improved assessment framework, including four indicators, vigor, organization, resilience, and ecosystem services supply rate, was established from the perspective of human–environment systems. Then, the performance of the improved assessment framework was demonstrated in a case study in China from 2000 to 2020. Results: From 2000 to 2020, the overall spatial pattern of ecosystem health values in China was high in the southern and southeastern coastal regions, and low health values were mostly located in the western region, parts of Inner Mongolia, and metropolitan areas, with a descending trend from southeast to northwest. The imbalance between the potential and actual supply of ESs greatly contributed to the deterioration of regional ecosystem health. During the study period, the regional ecosystem in China was found to be in a more unhealthy state than in traditional Vigor-Organization-Resilience-Ecosystem services (VORES) evaluation. Conclusions: The improved assessment framework that incorporates the ecological integrity and sustainable supply of ESs provides a new perspective for understanding the complex inherent characteristics of ecosystems and the regional human-nature connectedness in coupled human–environment systems. Our results could serve as a scientific reference for practical landscape governance in a changing world to achieve landscape sustainability.

Constructing an ecological security pattern (ESP) is an important means to describe, manage, and control ecological security. However, there are few related studies on functional analyses and evaluations of landscape elements, and the distribution of identified elements cannot fully reflect reality. To accurately depict ecological security and strengthen the role of landscape planning for policy formulation, we used the spatial distribution patterns of ecosystem services to adjust the ecosystem service value to accurately identify the distribution of ecological sources. The gravity model and Centrality Mapper tool are used to build an “importance–connectivity” index that evaluates the importance of ecological corridors in linking the sources and the contribution to maintaining the overall connectivity of ecological networks. The results show that (1) spatial heterogeneity exists in seven kinds of ecosystem services in Sichuan Province, China, and the high-level areas are concentrated in the central region. Moreover, (2) a total of 179 ecological sources and 445 ecological corridors with woodland and grassland as the main land use types are identified, and (3) a total of 153, 49, 78, and 165 corridors are divided into high importance–high connectivity, low importance–high connectivity, high importance–low connectivity, and low importance–low connectivity ecological corridors, respectively. The study provides a new framework for the construction of an ESP and for the priority evaluation of ecological corridors. To achieve balance between economic development and environmental protection, priority should be given to the protection of high-priority corridors when maintaining ecological security.

The escalation of urbanization in Sichuan Province has resulted in irrational land use and excessive resource exploitation. These developments have consequently diminished the functionality of ecosystem services and exacerbated landscape fragmentation in the region. These challenges pose significant threats to the ecological security of the area. In this study, we computed the ecosystem service value and the landscape ecological risk index of Sichuan Province from 2005 to 2018. We analyzed the spatial autocorrelation between the ecosystem service value and the landscape ecological risk index, constructing a framework for landscape ecological risk assessment and zoning control based on ecosystem service value. The results show the following: (1) Between 2005 and 2018, the total value of ecosystem services in Sichuan Province increased from CNY 10,261.17 × 10⁸ to CNY 10,310.43 × 10⁸, with forest land and grassland being the primary contributors to the ESV. (2) High- and higher-risk areas within the landscape ecology of Sichuan Province are expanding, forming a pattern of high-level risk concentration from west to east. (3) There exists a negative correlation between the ecosystem service value and the landscape ecological risk index in Sichuan Province. (4) In the ecological conservation zone, the principle of low-impact development must be upheld. In the ecological cultivation zone, adjusting the proportion of land use types is necessary to enhance the rationality of the land use structure. The ecological agricultural zone should fully utilize the advantages of agriculture, while the ecological improvement zone requires focused attention to ecological restoration and land remediation.

Clarifying the complex relationships among ecosystem services (ESs) and the driving mechanisms of ecosystem service (ES) is essential for supporting regional ES and ecological sustainability. Although studies on ES relationships provide guidance for regional ecological management, the driving mechanisms of ES have not been adequately studied, especially in areas with complex natural environments and progressive urbanization. Combined with the data on land use, climate, NDVI, and soil data, this paper aims to explore this issue by analyzing the relationships among ESs and the driving mechanisms of ESs in the western Sichuan Plateau region of China. Firstly, the temporal and spatial distribution characteristics of five ecosystem services (food supply, water supply, habitat quality, soil conservation, and carbon storage) from 2000 to 2020 were analyzed by the InVEST model. Second, the trade-offs/synergistic relationships among ESs were analyzed using SPSS as well as the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient method in MATLAB. Finally, the Geodetector model was further used to reveal the influencing factors of ecosystem services in the western Sichuan Plateau. The results showed that: (1) Water supply decreased in the western Sichuan Plateau from 2000 to 2020, but increased in the eastern part; habitat quality was generally good in the whole Sichuan Plateau, but decreased in some areas; carbon storage showed an overall improving trend; soil conservation showed an overall increasing and then decreasing trend, and food supply services showed an increasing trend. (2) From 2000 to 2020, food supply and other services in the western Sichuan Plateau were in a trade-off relationship; all other service pairs showed a synergistic relationship. (3) In terms of space, the relationships between ecosystem services showed spatial heterogeneity. There was a synergistic relationship between food supply and habitat quality in some areas, such as Litang County and Xinlong County, and there was a trade-off relationship between water supply and carbon storage services in some areas, such as Ruoergai County and Daocheng County, etc. (4) The Geodetector results showed that food supply and soil conservation were mainly influenced by the slope (0.682, 0.672), annual precipitation was the strongest explanation for water supply (0.967), and habitat quality and carbon storage were the most influenced by NDVI (0.876, 0.828); meanwhile, each ecosystem service was interactively influenced by multiple factors. Based on the results, we proposed ecological management recommendations for the western Sichuan Plateau, the most important one being that the western Sichuan Plateau should protect and rationally use the existing natural resources, especially the existing forest and grassland resources, and at the same time reform the agricultural structure and scientifically plan urban development, to promote the coexistence of cities and nature. We took the western Sichuan Plateau of China, where urbanization and a complex natural environment are in opposition, as an example, to explore its ecosystem services, relationships, and driving mechanisms, and then put forward suggestions on ecological management and control, providing a reference for future regional coordination between urbanization and the natural environment.