Spatial Divergence Analysis of Ecosystem Service Value in Hilly Mountainous Areas: A Case Study of Ruijin City

The southern hilly mountains are rich in natural resources and are one of the important ecological security barrier zones in China. However, the disturbance of the ecosystem caused by human activities has led to a differentiated character of spatial ecosystem services. Such spatially differentiated characteristics have not been well studied, and thus are bound to limit our ability to manage ecosystems sustainably. Taking Ruijin City, a typical hilly mountainous area in southern China, as an example, this paper evaluates the ecosystem service values (ESV) of Ruijin City from 2000 to 2020 by using equivalent factor method combined with GIS technology. On this basis, spatial autocorrelation analysis is used to identify unique heterogeneous units of ESV. The results show that the overall ESV of Ruijin City from 2000 to 2020 showed a trend of slow increase in the first decade and a significant decrease in the second decade. The ESV in Ruijin City has a high degree of spatial divergence, showing the distribution characteristics of low value in the central region and high value in the marginal region. With the acceleration of urbanization, the ESV in the central region of Ruijin City decreases significantly from 2010 to 2020. Therefore, for the high value areas of ecosystem services, attention should be paid to the balanced development of economy and ecology. For low-value areas, it is necessary to strengthen the control of the ecological environment, protect sensitive areas with serious loss of ecosystem services, change the development model, and improve the supply capacity of ecological products. The government should calculate green Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on the evaluation results of ESV, and formulate a green GDP evaluation system in the performance evaluation.