Ecological compensation is an effective means to adjust relationships among stakeholders in order to conserve and/or sustainably use ecosystem services. The current ecological compensation standards (ECS) do not well reflect the differences in ecological, social, and economic development. Thus, we took a typical urbanization area (the Suzhou–Wuxi–Changzhou region) in China as an example, because of its prominent contradiction between rapid socio-economic development and fragile ecosystem. Combined with the ecological, economic, and social conditions, the methods of ecosystem service value (ESV) evaluation, cluster analysis, and scenario analysis were used to propose an optimized spatial zoning method and optimal development scenario. Then, the ECS by different zones were determined by using ESV assessment, cost-benefit analysis, and contingent valuation method. The results showed that (1) the regions were divided into two categories, with a total of four zones: ESV output areas (synergetic development zones (SDZ) and ecological conservation zones (ECZ)) and ESV input areas (ecological degradation zones (EDegZ) and economic development zones (EDevZ)); (2) among five scenarios, the best development mode in the future was the protection and development scenario, which was consistent with the existing planning; and (3) the ECS for the SDZ should be paid about 1.94 billion Yuan/year, the ECZ should be paid about 0.80 billion Yuan/year, the ECS for the EDegZ should pay about 2.20–2.25 million Yuan/year, and the EDevZ should pay about 0.06–7.33 million Yuan/year. By feasibility analysis, the ESV input areas were fully capable of inter-regional compensation, which could promote the effective purchase of ecological services. The developed evaluation framework of ECS in this study can accurately provide a scientific basis for the determination of ecological compensation regulations and policies in the future.

Water supply services (WSSs) are critical to human survival and development. The Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model enables an integrated, dynamic, and visual assessment of ecosystem services at different scales. In addition, Geodetector is an effective tool for identifying the main driving factors of spatial heterogeneity of ecosystem services. Therefore, this article takes the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA), the most prominent strategic reserve of freshwater resources in China, as the study area and uses the InVEST model to simulate the spatiotemporal heterogeneity of the supply-demand balance of WSSs and freshwater security patterns in 2005, 2010, 2015, and 2018, and explores the key driving factors of freshwater security index (FSI) with Geodetector. The total supply of WSSs in the TGRA decreased by 1.05% overall between 2005 and 2018, with the head and tail areas being low-value regions for water yield and the central part of the belly areas being high-value regions for water yield. The total demand for WSSs in the TGRA increased by 9.1%, with the tail zones and the central part of the belly zones being the high water consumption areas. In contrast, the head zones are of low water consumption. The multi-year average FSI of the TGRA is 0.12, 0.1, 0.21, and 0.16, showing an upward trend. The key ecological function areas in the TGRA are high-value FSI regions, while the tail zones in the key development areas are low-value FSI regions. Industrial water consumption significantly impacts FSI, with a multi-year average q value of 0.82. Meanwhile, the q value of industrial and domestic water consumption on FSI in 2018 increased by 43.54% and 30%, respectively, compared with 2005. This study analyzes the spatiotemporal variation of WSSs and detects the drivers in the natural-economic-social perspective and innovation in ecosystem services research. The study results can guide water resource security management in other large reservoirs or specific reservoir areas.

Ecological compensation (EC) is an important way to solve the imbalance of cross-regional economic development and realize regional coordinated development. How to quantify the standard of EC has become a hot research topic. Firstly, this paper selected the Three Gorges Reservoir Region (TGRR) as the study area, and constructed a cross-regional spillover ecological value measurement model based on the extended emergy analysis. From the perspective of the “ecology–economy–society” complex ecosystem, this paper used emergy to reflect the social, economic, and ecological function and service value of the TGRR, and estimated the ecosystem emergy supply and consumption in the TGRR. Then, comparing the watershed ecosystem emergy supply and consumption, we can judge the status of the ecological surplus and deficit of the TGRR, and transfer the spillover ecological emergy to spillover ecological value (SEV) by using the emergy currency ratio (ECR). Finally, combined with different actual payment level coefficient, we can obtain a relatively objective and robust compensation standard. The results show that the SEV of the TGRR in 2016 is 2.70 × 10¹¹ USD, which indicates that the TGRR is in the state of ecological surplus. The TGRR should get EC about 2.85 × 10¹¹ USD according to the ECR. Based on the research results, it is suggested to expand the transfer payment to the TGRR. At the same time, it is suggested to formulate different ecological compensation standard (ECS) according to regional differences, which has important practical significance to establish the allocation standard of EC, and provides a typical case basis for other large reservoir areas or typical reservoir areas.

The integrity and health of the ecosystem is the material basis for the common prosperity of different minority areas. Since the acceleration of social and economic growth in the 21st century, excessive social development has caused ecological imbalance, climate change and environmental pollution and other problems. The irrational use of natural resources gradually affects the balance between man and nature. In this paper, the characteristics of ecosystem health and four sub-systems of environment, economy, society and management in the Three Gorges Reservoir area are selected to study. The purpose of this paper is to construct an ecosystem health evaluation index system to describe the characteristics of the ecosystem in the Three Gorges Reservoir area. Firstly, a multi-criteria evaluation model was established based on catastrophe theory to evaluate the health of the ecosystem in the Three Gorges Reservoir area. Secondly, the Catastrophe progression method (CPM) was used to describe the overall change trend of the ecosystem in the Three Gorges Reservoir area from 2000 to 2016. The study shows that since 2000, with the development of economy and society and the further strengthening of environmental management, the health of the ecosystem in the Three Gorges Reservoir area has been improved year by year. At the same time, in order to further explore the factors affecting the ecosystem health of the reservoir, the climate factors were added to the control variables, and the model regression analysis was established through panel data. The final conclusion was that the average temperature, rainfall and sunshine time had significant effects on the ecosystem of the reservoir.