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[Display omitted] • The land surface area of the mainland China was calculated based on 30 m resolution DEM. • Absolute difference and relative difference of ESV based on surface area and plane area was conducted at country, provincial and county levels. • The characteristics of temporal-spatial variation of ESV of various ecosystems based on surface area in China were revealed. • The total ESV based on surface area was compared with other studies. • The importance of the surface area in land resource survey, natural asset estimation and ecological protection was emphasized. The assessment of ecological assets is of great significance for protecting and using ecological resources. Traditional methods of ecological assets assessment, which adopt the planar area as the standard, often ignore the impact of the surface area, resulting in a large difference between the evaluation and the actual result. To fill this gap, this paper conducted research on ecological assets assessment based on surface area. Taking mainland China into consideration, this paper constructed a triangulation network based on 30 m resolution DEM data to simulate the real land surface form and calculate its surface area. Then, land use/cover data from 1995, 2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015 were used to estimate the ecosystem service value (ESV) and analyze its spatial variation. This paper found that: (1) The surface area of mainland China is 1.04 × 107 km2, which is 8.2 × 105 km2 larger than the planar area; (2) A huge difference was found between the total ESV based on the surface and planar area, with an absolute difference of ∼$141.66-$144.14 billion and a relative difference of ∼ 10%. For different ecosystem types, the largest difference was found in the forest ecosystem, followed by the grassland ecosystem, while the wetland ecosystem showed the smallest difference; (3) The high value of absolute difference between the ESV based on the surface and planar area was concentrated in Tibet and Northeast China. The high value of relative difference was mainly distributed in Central and Southern China. On the provincial level, the absolute difference in Tibet ranked in the first place. There was a total of 14 provinces showing a relative difference above 10%; (4) The total ESV based on surface area was basically unchanged, while various ecosystems underwent significant changes. The ESV of wetland increased by nearly 50%, while the ESV of grassland decreased by more than 10%; and (5) Change in the ESV based on surface area showed obvious spatial heterogeneity. High-High cluster was located in Tibet and the Northeast China while the Low-Low cluster was distributed in the North China Plain and Xinjiang. This paper emphasized the importance of the surface area in resource survey and asset estimation and gave more effective suggestions for ecological protection. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• We propose ICTP to coordinate between tourism development and ecological protection. • Areas with higher ICTP are more prone to nature-based tourism vs. ecological protection conflicts. • Considerable proportion of studied areas (ca. 13.79%) have very high ICTP. • These areas are characterized with both high landscape attractiveness and high ecological sensitivity. Developing spatial regulation strategies is important for nature-based tourism, and this procedure could be more rational and scientific with the understanding of the spatial distribution of conflicts tendency between tourism development and ecological protection. In this study, we developed an Indicator of Conflict tendency between nature-based Tourism development and ecological Protection (ICTP), based on the combination of landscape attractiveness and ecological sensitivity. By integrating land cover, topography, climate and other datasets, this paper presents the spatial distribution of the ICTP in the study area in China. The results show that most areas of China have a low or medium ICTP. Areas with very high ICTP account for 13.79% of the studied areas, including the central part of the Inner Mongolia Plateau, northern part of the Loess Plateau, southwestern part of the Northeast Plain, north and south sides of Tianshan Mountains, coast of Bohai Bay and coastal areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang Province. These areas are mainly confronted with problems of desertification, salinization and soil erosion. 11.09% of studied areas have very low ICTP, mainly located in the Tarim Basin and western part of Inner Mongolia Plateau, characterized by low landscape attractiveness and low ecological sensitivity. Our results can inform decision makers with regard to where are most likely to suffer from ecological problems caused by nature-based tourism activities, and to which types of problems that are likely to arise. Such information can help decision makers forecast the developmental trend of the relationship between nature-based tourism development and ecological protection, further determine the degree of control on nature-based tourism. The study developed the basic framework for measuring the conflict tendency of nature-based tourism development and ecological protection, which can inspire researchers to think about factors that should be considered when measuring such tendency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]