In recent years, environmental degradation and the COVID-19 pandemic have seriously affected economic development and social stability. Addressing the impact of major public health events on residents’ willingness to pay for environmental protection (WTPEP) and analyzing the drivers are necessary for improving human well-being and environmental sustainability. We designed a questionnaire to analyze the change in residents’ WTPEP before and during COVID-19 and an established ordinary least squares (OLS), spatial lag model (SLM), spatial error model (SEM), geographically weighted regression (GWR), and multiscale GWR to explore driver factors and scale effects of WTPEP based on the theory of environment Kuznets curve (EKC). The results show that (1) WTPEP is 0–20,000 yuan before COVID-19 and 0–50,000 yuan during COVID-19. Residents’ WTPEP improved during COVID-19, which indicates that residents’ demand for an ecological environment is increasing; (2) The shapes and inflection points of the relationships between income and WTPEP are spatially heterogeneous before and during COVID-19, but the northern WTPEP is larger than southern, which indicates that there is a spatial imbalance in WTPEP; (3) Environmental degradation, health, environmental quality, and education are WTPEP’s significant macro-drivers, whereas income, age, and gender are significant micro-drivers. Those factors can help policymakers better understand which factors are more suitable for macro or micro environmental policy-making and what targeted measures could be taken to solve the contradiction between the growing ecological environment demand of residents and the spatial imbalance of WTPEP in the future.

Worldwide most agroecosystems effort to increase production and yields and leads to damages of a series of non-provisioning ecosystem services (ESs). To fill in the knowledge gaps pertaining to the understanding of complex relationship between agricultural harvests and other ESs, therefore this study aims to estimate the existence of Environmental Kuznets Curve (EKC) for agricultural ESs by incorporating the spatial factors. Based on the test of the spatial autocorrelation of agricultural ESs, the estimation results of spatial model are compared with general regression to explain the spatial effect of agricultural ESs. The results show that (1) contrary to expectation, the curve of the nonlinear relationship between agricultural ESs and annual household income is an inverted U-shape, and not an upright U-shape; (2) compared to non-spatial model, the turning point of the inverted U-shaped curve for agricultural ESs under the direct effect would happen earlier and happen later under the indirect effect; (3) years of formal education, vegetation coverage of field margin and cultivated land area have significantly impact on local agricultural ESs, and local perennial crops has significantly impact on agricultural ESs of neighboring villages. Results of this study have a promising application prospect to promote sustainable development of agriculture.

Crop pollination and biological pest control services are critical ecosystem services. Their coordinated development is vital for agricultural green transformation. However, it remained unclear whether land circulation, a key pathway for promoting large-scale farming, is associated with their coordination. Against this backdrop, we constructed indices for Crop-Pollination Service Management (CPSM) and Integrated Pest Management (IPM) to quantify farmers’ adoption levels. Based on survey data from 249 households in Dengkou County, Inner Mongolia, we employed Propensity Score Matching to examine the associations between land circulation and CPSM and IPM adoption. Random Forest Regression explored nonlinear relationships and key factors. K-means clustering classified farmers into ecosystem service management types, and Multinomial Logit models identified influencing type assignment. Results showed that land circulation was differently associated with CPSM and IPM adoption: it was associated with increased CPSM levels but decreased IPM adoption rates, indicating a lower level of CPSM-IPM coordination among land-circulation households. Awareness of importance, pesticide residues, and soil conditions were important predictors associated with both CPSM and IPM. Land circulation was associated with an increased likelihood of farmers being classified as a “pollination-focused management type,” while education and awareness of importance were associated with classification as a “high- coordination management type.” Our findings emphasize the need for long-term land circulation contracts with ecological clauses, performance-based subsidies, tailored technical services, and a support system for risk-sharing and socialized services. This study provides empirical evidence for improving land systems and agricultural green transformation within the study area.