Strategies for regional environmental health management based on ecosystem services

• Comprehensively assess ecosystem services and apply the results to ecosystem health management. • The cold and hot spots of ecosystem services and environmental health risks were analyzed. • Provide an interdisciplinary method for regional and global environmental health research. Ecosystems enhance physical and mental health through multidimensional services, including providing clean resources, climate regulation, and creating cultural-recreational spaces, thereby establishing synergistic mechanisms between ecological systems and environmental health. Guangdong is the largest economic province in China. Still, with the continuous growth of the economy and population, its environmental health problems are becoming more and more serious. Incorporating ecosystem services assessments into environmental health governance can streamline multi-factor management challenges and elevate environmental stewardship. The results show that: (1) Ecosystem services significantly affect environmental health risks. When the coordination degree among Ecosystem services exceeds 0.4, the decline rate of certain environmental health risks accelerate; around a coordination degree of 0.5, some risks are minimized. (2) Over the past two decades, the difference in average annual PM2.5 concentration between the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA) and the forested northern Guangdong reached 10%. Vegetation degradation resulting from urban expansion in the Shantou-Chaozhou-Jieyang, Zhanjiang-Maoming-Yangjiang, and GBA urban agglomerations has intensified the urban heat island effect, highlighting the need to improve the extent and quality of forest and vegetation coverage. (3) There is a pronounced spatial overlap between Ecosystem services cold spots and environmental health risk hotspots within the GBA. The results offer novel insights and references for environmental health research, provide a theoretical foundation for environmental health management in Guangdong and other comparable regions, and contribute to achieving sustainable development goals.