The concept of Ecosystem Service (ES) has provided an underpinning framework for ecological restoration research and applications. Ecological restoration is a corrective intervention that aims to reverse land degradation and to contribute to the 2030 Global Sustainable Development goal of Land Degradation Neutrality. It is critical to investigate the long-term effects of ecological restoration and land use change on ESs and ES interactions (synergies or trade-offs) to better understand the mechanisms supporting this goal. This paper describes an analysis of land use and ESs using historical data for a typical watershed in Chinese Loess Plateau, which has experienced series of restoration activities since the 1950s. Six important ESs (food provisioning, soil retention, hydrological regulation, carbon sequestration, water purification and habitat provisioning for biodiversity) were quantified at eight intervals between 1958 and 2015. The interactions between ESs were evaluated by correlation analysis. The results show that soil retention, carbon sequestration, water purification and habitat provisioning for biodiversity increased significantly across the different land use types over several decades but not hydrological regulation. The relationship between ESs was found to be variable over different time periods and a transition point between 1990 and 1995 was identified. Grassland was found to maintain greater water yield than woodland with high values of other ESs. The results suggest that trade-offs between ESs can be mitigated by adjusting the proportion of some important land use types (such as woodland and grassland).

Ecological restoration can result in extensive land use transitions which may directly impact on water runoff and sediment loss and thus influence tradeoffs between multiple hydrological and soil ecosystem services. However, quantifying the effect of these transitions on runoff and sediment yields has been a challenge over large spatial scales. This study integrated and synthesized 43 articles and 331 runoff experimental plots in the Loess Plateau of China under natural rainfall to quantify the impacts of land use transitions on (a) runoff and sediment production, (b) runoff and soil loss reduction effectiveness, and (c) the tradeoffs between runoff and soil erosion. The effects of ecological restoration on runoff and sediment yields were quantified using a general mixed linear meta-regression model with a restricted maximum likelihood estimator on overall and individual ecological restoration types. The results showed that artificial grassland, forest, natural grassland, and shrubland had higher runoff and sediment reduction effectiveness. The annual runoff reduction effectiveness of the ecological restoration overall was 72.18% with the effects of artificial grassland, natural grassland, shrubland, and forest at 71.89%, 50.60%, 73.18%, and 73.08%, respectively. The annual sediment reduction effectiveness of the overall ecological restoration was 99.9% without a significant difference among the four land uses associated with ecological recovery. In addition, shrubland and forest significantly reduced sediment yields with relatively high runoff costs. Natural grassland was optimal for balancing water provisioning and soil conservation, and artificial grassland was second to natural grassland in this respect. Meanwhile, newly unmanaged abandoned land and cropland had relative weak functionality with regard to soil and water conservation. The implications of this study’s findings are discussed along with their potential to contribute to an improved understanding of the effects of ecological restoration on water supply and soil retention for the water-limited terrestrial ecosystem at a regional scale.

Large-scale ecological restoration has been widely accepted globally as an effective strategy for combating environmental crises and to facilitate sustainability. Assessing the effectiveness of ecological restoration is vital for researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers. However, few practical tools are available to perform such tasks, particularly for large-scale restoration programmes in complex socio-ecological systems. By taking a "before and after" design, this paper formulates a composite index (Ej) based on comparing the trends of vegetation cover and vegetation productivity to assess ecological restoration effectiveness. The index reveals the dynamic and spatially heterogenic process of vegetation restoration across different time periods, which can be informative for ecological restoration management at regional scales. Effectiveness together with its relationship to socio-economic factors is explored via structural equation modeling for three time periods. The results indicate that the temporal scale is a crucial factor in representing restoration effectiveness, and that the effects of socio-economic factors can also vary with time providing insight for improving restoration effectiveness. A dual-track strategy, which promotes the development of tertiary industry in absorbing the rural labor force together with improvements in agricultural practices, is proposed as a promising strategy for enhancing restoration effectiveness. In this process, timely and long-term ecological restoration monitoring is advocated, so that the success and sustainability of such programmes is ensured, together with more informative decision making where socio-ecological interactions at differing temporal scales are key concerns.