Trade‐Offs/Synergies and Drivers of Ecosystem Service Sustainability at Multiple Scales: Insights From the South China Karst

ABSTRACT Ecosystem services (ES) are interconnected with various aspects of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Understanding the status of ecosystem services sustainability (ESS) is crucial for achieving optimal ecosystem management. However, the understanding of the state, relationships, and driving mechanisms of ESS across scales remains limited. The essence of ESS is that the natural supply of ES meets current social demand without affecting later consumption. Therefore, we attempted to analyze the multi‐scale ESS and its drivers in the South China Karst region from the ES supply and demand perspective. From the results of the study, the sustainability of habitat quality (HQ) and carbon sequestration (CS) declined, while water yield (WY), soil conservation (SC), and food provision (FP) were enhanced, and the magnitude of change at the watershed scale was relatively gradual. The distribution patterns of ESS were similar at the county and watershed scales, but there were significant differences in the spatial clustering of hot and cold spots. The trade‐offs and synergies of ESS migrate with time and spatial scale, with counties dominated by competing trade‐offs and watersheds dominated by mutually reinforcing synergies. Social and terrain factors primarily influence HQ, while SC and CS are mainly driven by vegetation and social factors. Whereas WY is more controlled by climatic factors, especially most influenced by precipitation. Climate and terrain factors are the dominant factors limiting the sustainability of FP. Among the mediating effects, there is a need to focus on vegetation and social factor interaction processes, as positive indirect effects dominate them. On the contrary, the interactive processes of climate and terrain need to be guarded against, as they always have strong negative indirect effects, especially at the watershed scale. In the future practice of ecological management, we should strengthen multi‐scale management and actively promote synergistic management between supply and demand to resolve conflicts between multiple objectives and realize a win‐win situation.