State and local governments consider payment for ecosystem services (PES) a valuable tool for watershed protection. However, regional differences in PES policies, which significantly influence province-scale cooperation, have been seldom documented. The interrelationships among these policies directly affect overall PES development in the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB). Textual analysis was used to categorize the content of PES policies in 11 provinces from 2004 to 2018. Then, we assessed these PES policies with four indicators (i.e., policy intensity, interdepartmental coordination, diversity, and duration). Finally, we analyzed the impact factors of these regional differences. The results showed that the number of PES policies increased yearly, reaching a peak in 2017. Provinces in the upper reaches had the highest policy-intensity score (7.38), followed by downstream provinces (6.39) and provinces in the middle reaches (4.52). Regarding interdepartmental coordination, the downstream areas exhibited the most interdepartment interaction (27.92%), followed by the upstream areas (20.76%) and the middle areas (19.18%). Diversity in the middle reaches was the highest (scored 4.3) while the upstream area exhibited the lowest diversity value (3.25). Downstream provinces issued PES policies the earliest, with a duration 5.52 years, followed by the upstream provinces (4.68) and middle provinces (4.28). Policy intensity was significantly correlated with fixed-asset investment, solid-waste generation, and population. The results suggest that PES in the YREB needs to be strengthened by enhancing policy consistency. In this regard, identifying regional differences in PES policies can help improve the coordination of PES policies for the whole YREB.

Chengdu Plain is one of China’s most important agricultural production zones and has a large human population. Agricultural crops require insect pollination to increase yield and quality, which is especially important in plains areas where forest area is small. Homegardens are the main habitat of pollinators. The present study identified the importance of insect pollination in homegardens in the Chengdu Plain through field investigations and comparative experiments and revealed the risk to pollination services caused by the decrease in diversity and population of managed and wild pollinators. The results showed that (1) prohibiting all insect pollination (treatment A) and prohibiting managed bee pollination (treatment B) significantly reduced the yield and seed number of rapeseed and significantly reduced the size, weight, and sweetness of peach fruit, but had no significant effects on plums; (2) the dependence on insect pollination and the economic values of insect pollination for rapeseed and peaches are 0.56 and $85.1 million and 0.44 and $31.0 million, respectively; (3) there were 23 flower-visiting pollinator species at the experimental sites including: four species of managed bees and 19 species of wild pollinators. The peak time for pollinators to visit flowers was 11:00 to 15:00, and the managed bees accounted for over 67.55% of these visits; (4) within a radius of 1000 m from the site, 58.06% of the bees were non-locally managed, and the bee population managed locally by farmers decreased; and (5) compared with 2008, the number of homegardens decreased by 17.24%, the managed bees within the homegardens decreased by 62.05%, and the disappearance and destruction of homegardens led to a significant reduction in wild pollinators.

Water retention is an important factor in ecosystem services, owing to its relationships with climate and land-cover change; however, quantifying the independent and combined impacts of these variables remains a challenge. We use scenario analysis and the InVEST model to assess individual or combined impacts of climate and land cover on water retention in the Upper Yangtze River Basin. Water retention decreased from 1986 to 2015 at a rate of 2.97 mm/10a in response to increasing precipitation (3.94 mm/10a) and potential evapotranspiration (16.47 mm/10a). The rate of water retention change showed regional variability (from 68 to −18 mm/a), with some eastern regions experiencing an increase and most other regions experiencing a decrease. Farmland showed the highest decrease (10,772 km²), with land mainly converted into forest (58.17%) and shrub land (21.13%) from 2000 to 2015. The impact of climate change (−12.02 mm) on water retention generally was greater than the impact of land cover change (−4.14 mm), at the basin scale. Among 22 climate zones, 77.27% primarily were impacted by climate change; 22.73% primarily were impacted by land cover change. Our results demonstrate that both individualistic and integrated approaches toward climate and vegetation management is necessary to mitigate the impacts of climate change on water resources.