| Biodiversity is rapidly declining Since the Anthropocene, land use and climate change led by carbon emission have threated biodiversity a lot. The consumption-driven biodiversity loss called biodiversity footprint can help to clarify the subnational conservation responsibilities. This study first defined the concept of regional biodiversity footprint and then proposed a framework to account. A hybrid regional biodiversity footprints analysis model has been constructed based on the LCIA and EE-MRIO methods after establishing the inventory of biodiversity losses due to land use and carbon emissions at China's provincial level. We quantified biodiversity footprints of the eight major regions in China, and traced the flow pattern at the subnational level. Our research found that in China, the biodiversity footprint of 2017 under land use was 11.73 times higher than that under carbon emissions, footprint results under the two environmental pressures showed significant inconsistencies in the aspect of spatial distribution, composition, and flows. For example, 54.15% of the footprints caused by land use are concentrated in Northwest and Southwest China, while 46.58% of the footprints caused by carbon emission are concentrated in the northern coast, the middle reaches of the Yellow River and Southwest China. However, we also found that under the two environmental pressures, domestic footprints occupy more than 97% of the total footprints, net footprint outflows are concentrated in the Southwest, and key footprint sectors include manufacturing and services, revealing common footprint hotspots. This study clarifies the regional scale and flow pattern of China's biodiversity footprints from the consumption perspective, through some political implications about synergistic measures, we hope to provide some new ideas for biodiversity conservation in China. |
