Delineating spatiotemporal variations of coastal ecosystem service value from the ‘past-current-future’ perspective

Abstract Insufficient understanding of coastal natural resources hinders the efforts to reconcile economic development and ecological protection. The dynamics of ecosystem service value (ESV) needs to be assessed for opening opportunities in understanding the ecological consequences of human activities. This study identifies the spatiotemporal patterns of ESV from the “past-present-future” perspective, coupling hotspot analysis, geo-detector and patch-generating land simulation model into the framework of ESV assessment. Land use resources in Liaoning coastal zone over past two decades that are utilized for wetlands (-31.86%), croplands (-11.38%) and grasslands (-4.76%) decreased to different degrees, whereas built-up lands increased by 100.02%. The magnitude of coastal ESVs is 149.41 billion CNY over past two decades average, and has shown constant fluctuations as a consequence of land use changes. The distribution of ESVs evolved towards greater coverage of cold spots and smaller hot spot areas during 2000–2020 year. Watersheds and wetlands with 13.25% and 3.77% of total area contribute 70.37% and 8.29% of total ESVs, respectively, especially in water supply, hydrological regulation, and biodiversity. Compared to 2020 year, the value of ESVs in 2050 year increased to 212.72 and 311.48 billion CNY for economic and ecological (maximize ecosystem service/ecological capacity) scenarios, respectively, whereas decreased to 89.14 billion CNY for baseline scenario. Intense human activities are going to reshape the patterns of ESV generated from coastal natural resources. These findings provide timely and precisely evidence for balancing ecological protection and economic development in the context of Liaoning coastal construction from now on. Graphical Abstract