Impacts of land use structures on ecosystem services relationships within specialized tea planting regions: a case study of Anxi County

The increasing demand for tea has resulted in the swift expansion of tea plantations, leading to significant alterations in the local ecosystem. This has garnered considerable attention. However, research on rationally modifying land use structures (LUSs) in specialized tea regions to achieve a balance with ecosystem services (ESs) and enhance their synergistic effects remains limited. In this study, we quantified the values of water yield (WY), soil conservation (SC), carbon storage (CS), and habitat quality (HQ) by the InVEST model, utilized K-means clustering to categorize the LUSs of the village areas in Anxi County from 2010 to 2020, and then investigated the influences of the LUSs on the ESs by the improvement of the constraint line tool, according to which we utilized the ecosystem services trade-off degree (ESTD) and the Pearson correlation coefficient to explore the trade-offs and synergies among ecosystem services. The findings indicated that: (1) LUSs in Anxi County are tea garden structure (TS), forest land-tea garden structure (FTS), and construction land-cropland-tea garden structure (CCTS); (2) In LUSs, to achieve a balance among WY, SC, CS, and HQ, the dominant land use proportions were as follows: 0.5 for tea plantations in TS; a range of 0.55–0.6 for forest land and 0.05–0.1 for tea plantations in FTS; and CCTS, 0.25–0.3 for built-up land, 0–0.1 for cropland, and 0.2 for tea plantations; (3) The trade-offs and synergies of ESs vary across different LUSs. The synergy is particularly evident in FTS. Increasing the quantity of forest area is helpful in enhancing the synergy of ESs. This study offers an analysis of the effect of LUSs on ESs and their interconnections in specialized tea planting regions. It serves as a valuable insight into informing urban planning for future land usage and ecological conservation efforts.