Dynamic variations in ecosystem service value and sustainability of urban system: A case study for Tianjin city, China

• Estimation of the dynamic ecosystem service value (ESV) in Tianjin.
• We apply dynamic ESV to build the index of urban sustainability.
• Land policy is a key factor affecting the regional ESV and sustainability.
• Indicators given in our paper have superiority in applying ESV for practice.

Rapid urbanization and industrialization in China have seriously threatened the ecosystem and urban sustainability. This paper estimated the dynamic variations of ecosystem service value (ESV) in response to changes of land use/land cover (LULC) under rapid urbanization, and it analyzed their impacts on sustainability of urban system. Tianjin, the largest coastal city in China, was selected as the study area. The total ESV of Tianjin was approximately 8791.86 million Yuan in 2003, 7948.04 million Yuan in 2007, and 8378.53 million Yuan in 2011. By taking the total dynamic ESV as one of the key factors, we calculated the indexes of urban sustainability from 2003 to 2011. It was found that the dynamic variations of ESV in response to LULC changes had significant impacts on the sustainability of urban system. Therefore, in order to increase the capacity for urban sustainable development, there is an urgent need to lighten the heavy burden on the ecosystem through rational land use management during rapid urbanization.