Ecosystem service synergies/trade-offs informing the supply-demand match of ecosystem services: Framework and application

Ecosystem services (ES) underpin human well-being, but their complex synergies or trade-offs are a challenge for matching ES supply and demand. This study presents a framework for integrating ES synergies/trade-offs and approaches (“win-win”, “small loss-big gain” and “ES replacement”) to improve the match between ES supply and demand. We applied the framework in a watershed on China’s Hainan Island, where local ES supply and demand are severely out of balance. Based on the analyses of ES synergies/trade-offs and their drivers, selecting the “win-win” approach (planting rubber with intercropped medicinal plants) and “ES replacement” approach (transitioning some secondary forest into rubber intercropped with medicinal plants) together could effectively improve the match between the supply and demand of agricultural product provision (its supply-demand ratio increased from 0.65 to 1.3) without disrupting the established supply-demand matches of water resource provision, soil retention, flood mitigation and water purification services. Our framework contributes to a new perspective for improving the match between ES supply and demand.