Assessment of the effectiveness of China’s protected areas in enhancing ecosystem services

Protected areas are critical for providing ecosystem services. However, studies on the effect of protected areas on ecosystem service enhancement remain lacking, which restricts efficient protected area management. In this study, a statistical matching approach was used to analyze the role of 637 protected areas in China in enhancing ecosystem services. The drivers that influence the effectiveness of protected areas were also explored. The results show that 94% of the protected areas enhanced at least one type of the selected ecosystem services compared with the controls (unprotected areas), and protected areas in areas with high human activity disturbance or ecological fragility were more effective in enhancing ecosystem services than in other areas. At the national scale, the effectiveness of protected areas for carbon sequestration, soil conservation, and water yield services was mainly influenced by physical geographic variables (e.g., mean annual temperature, annual precipitation), and of habitat quality service also by socio-economic variables (e.g., road network density, distance to the nearest cropland). The main drivers in the various dry and wet climate regions differed from those operating at national scale, reflecting the spatial heterogeneity of natural and socio-economic conditions. Our results provide useful information for application in protected area management.