Integrating Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approaches Improves Practicality and Efficiency of Large-Scale Ecological Restoration Planning: Insights from a Social–Ecological System

Ecological restoration policies and their implementation are influenced by ecological and socioeconomic drivers. Top-down approach-based spatial planning, emphasizing hierarchical control within government structures, and without a comprehensive consideration of social–ecological interactions may result in implementation failure and low efficiency. Although many researchers have indicated the necessity to engage social–ecological interactions between stakeholders in effective planning processes, socioeconomic drivers of ecological restoration on a large scale are difficult to quantify because of data scarcity and knowledge limitations. Here, we established a new ecological restoration planning approach linking a social–ecological system framework to large-scale ecological restoration planning. The new spatial planning approach integrates bottom-up approaches targeting stakeholder interests and provides social considerations for stakeholder behavior analysis. Based on this approach, a meta-analysis is introduced to recognize key socioeconomic and social–ecological factors influencing large-scale ecological restoration implementation, and a stochastic model is constructed to analyze the impact of socioeconomic drivers on the behavior of authorities and participants on a large scale. We used the Yangtze River Basin-based Conversion of Cropland to Forest Program (CCFP), one of the largest payments for ecosystem service programs worldwide, to quantify the socioeconomic impacts of large-scale ecological restoration programs. Current CCFP planning without socioeconomic considerations failed to achieve large-scale program goals and showed low investment efficiency, with 19.71% of the implemented area reconverting to cropland after contract expiry. In contrast, spatial matching between planned and actual restoration increased from 61.55% to 81.86% when socioeconomic drivers were included. In addition, compared to that with the current CCFP implementation, the cost effectiveness of spatial planning with social considerations improved by 46.94%. Thus, spatial optimization planning that integrates both top-down and bottom-up approaches can result in more practical and effective ecological restoration than top-down approaches alone. Our new approach incorporates socioeconomic factors into large-scale ecological restoration planning with high practicality and efficiency.