Abstract

Tourism is a significant economic and social activity with unique human-land interaction characteristics, which raises significant ecological and environmental challenges. In the coastal and noncoastal zones of Sanya, the changes in four ecosystem services—water yield (WY), carbon storage (CS), soil retention (SR), and habitat quality (HQ)—were analysed, and the contributing factors were explored. We discovered that the built-up land area of Sanya’s coastal zone quadrupled between 2000 and 2018, that CS, SR, and HQ of the coastal zone had a clear downward trend relative to those of the non-coastal zone, and that WY was higher than that of the non-coastal zone, suggesting that the city’s growth in coastal tourism had a negative impact on the area’s ecological environment. Decrease in ecological health. Sanya’s ecosystem services declined less from 2010 to 2018 than they did from 2000 to 2010, demonstrating the success of the city’s recent ecological and environmental conservation efforts.