Ecosystem service demand relationship and trade-off patterns in urban parks across China

2026-02-11

AI Summary

This study addresses the unclear patterns of demand variation and trade-offs among urban residents for park ecosystem services in China. Drawing on a nationwide survey of 20,075 respondents and a point-allocation experiment, combined with socioeconomic and environmental variables, it systematically examines interrelationships among nine ecosystem services. The research reveals, for the first time, a pronounced preference among Chinese urban residents for air purification and recreational services, identifies three distinct bundles of service demand, and demonstrates that environmental interest and vegetation cover significantly modulate the intensity of trade-offs in service preferences. These findings provide robust empirical evidence and theoretical support for differentiated urban green space planning tailored to heterogeneous public demands.

Technology Category

• Knowledge Representation and Reasoning: Preferences
• Machine Learning: Learning Preferences or Rankings
• Game Theory and Economic Paradigms: Social Choice / Voting

Application Category

• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User privacy protection in personalized systems
• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Incentives in network design for Web infrastructures and ecosystems
• Web Mining and Content Analysis: Bridging structured and unstructured data

Abstract

Urban parks play a vital role in delivering various essential ecosystem services that significantly contribute to the well-being of urban populations. However, there is quite a limited understanding of how people value these ecosystem services differently. Here, we investigated the relationships among nine ecosystem service demands in urban parks across China using a large-scale survey with 20,075 responses and a point-allotment experiment. We found particularly high preferences for air purification and recreation services at the expense of other services among urban residents in China. These preferences were further reflected in three distinct demand bundles: air purification-dominated, recreation-dominated, and balanced demands. Each bundle delineated a typical group of people with different representative characteristics. Socio-economic and environmental factors, such as environmental interest and vegetation coverage, were found to significantly influence the trade-off intensity among service demands. These results underscore the necessity for tailored urban park designs that address diverse service demands with the aim of enhancing the quality of urban life in China and beyond sustainably.

Problem

• ecosystem service demand
• urban parks
• trade-offs
• preference heterogeneity
• urban well-being

Innovation

• ecosystem service demand
• trade-off analysis
• urban park
• point-allotment experiment
• demand bundles