The ecological protection and sustainable development of Urumqi have become an important part of the high-quality growth of the urban agglomeration on the northern slope of Tianshan Mountain. Under the impacts of multi-source factors, the ecological landscape pattern of Urumqi has changed due to it being in a fragile eco-environment, so an ecological network is desperately needed to enhance ecological security patterns. Taking Urumqi city as the study area, the ecological risk evaluation model and the minimum cumulative resistance model were integrated to analyze the spatial and temporal features of landscape ecological risk from 2000 to 2020, and the future land use simulation model was used to predict the ecological risk pattern of Urumqi in 2030, construct a landscape ecological network, and propose ecological security protection strategies. Since 2000, land use in Urumqi has undergone drastic changes: the built-up land area has increased significantly, the landscape has diversified, and landscape fragmentation has shown a decreasing trend from the main urban area as the core to the urban fringe. The high-risk landscape ecology shows a decreasing trend from east to west, mainly in the bare land areas with sparse vegetation, whereas the risk is relatively low in woodland, arable land, and built-up areas. The change of risk in the study area is mainly influenced by the typical defective factors of oasis cities such as urban expansion, land desertification, and sparse vegetation. The landscape ecological network is mainly located in the southwest, central, and east of the study area, whereas there is no corridor distribution in the north and southeast, which is mainly caused by the special geographical location and climatic conditions. The ecological network mainly consists of 10 ecological sources and 10 ecological corridors and proposes conservation strategies for the optimization of the landscape pattern and for the construction of the ecological security pattern in Urumqi, providing a guide for the improvement of ecological security.

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Construction and Restoration of Landscape Ecological Network in Urumqi City Based on Landscape Ecological Risk Assessment

Ecological security patterns (ESPs) have become an important spatial approach to alleviate the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development. The identification of ecological sources is the primary part of studying ESPs, and methods based on ecosystem services (ESs) have been widely used. However, the current method of simply overlaying ESs for ecological source identification has difficulty supporting different regional decision‐making needs of the target. Taking the West Liaohe River basin in China as an example, this study aims at developing four regional sustainable development goals (RSDGs) of carbon neutrality, water security, soil security, and biodiversity protection. Six ESs, including net primary production (NPP), water retention (WR), water purification (WP), soil conservation (SC), soil loss by wind (SL), and habitat quality (HQ), in the West Liaohe River basin from 2010 to 2020 were evaluated. Based on the current mainstream research paradigm of ‘source identification‐resistance surface construction‐corridor extraction‐safety pattern identification’, combined RSDGs and ESs, the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model was used to identify the West Liaohe River basin development goals. The pattern of ecological security was discussed, and the identification, optimization, and construction plan of the regional comprehensive ESP were discussed in combination with the actual situation of the region. The study found that simply overlaying ESs to identify ecological sources leads to the neglect of some areas that provide key ESs, and it is difficult to directly support regional ecological protection decisions under different objectives, while a multiobjective‐oriented comprehensive ecological security pattern helps to promote ESs and their relationships. The research results will help to improve the understanding of the ESP and provide a basis for the ecological protection and restoration of the basin and the optimization of the spatial structure to promote the sustainable development of the ‘social‐economic‐ecological’ complex system in the West Liaohe River basin.

Linking regional sustainable development goals with ecosystem services to identify ecological security patterns

Construction and optimization strategy of ecological security pattern based on ecosystem services and landscape connectivity: a case study of Guizhou Province, China

Land use changes induced by human activities change landscape patterns and ecological processes, threatening regional and global ecosystems. Terrain gradient and anthropogenic multi-policy regulation can have a pronounced effect on landscape components. Forecasting the changing trend of landscape ecological risk (LER) is important for national ecological security and regional sustainability. The present study assessed changes in LER in the Sichuan-Yunnan Ecological Barrier over a 20-year period using land use data from 2000, 2010, and 2020. The enhanced Markov-PLUS (patch-generating land use simulation) model was used to predict and analyze the spatial distribution pattern of LER under the following three scenarios. These were business-as-usual (BAU), urban development and construction (UDC), and ecological development priority (EDP) in 2030. The influence of terrain conditions on LER was also explored. The results showed that over the past 20 years, the LER index increased and then decreased and was dominated by medium and low risk, accounting for more than 70% of the total risk-rated area. The highest and higher risk areas for the three future scenarios have increased in spatial extent. The UDC scenario showed the largest increase of 3341.13 km2 and 2684.85 km2, respectively. The highest-risk level has a strong selectivity for low gradients, with high-level risks more likely to occur at low gradients. The response of ecological risk to gradient changes shows a positive correlation distribution for high-gradient areas and a negative correlation distribution for low-gradient areas. The influence of future topographic gradient changes on LER remains significant. The value of multiscale geographically weighted regression (MGWR) for identifying the spatial heterogeneity of terrain gradient and LER is highlighted. It can play an important role in the formulation of scientific solutions for LER prevention and of an ecological conservation policy for mountainous areas with complex terrain.

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Multi-Scenario Prediction of Landscape Ecological Risk in the Sichuan-Yunnan Ecological Barrier Based on Terrain Gradients

Ecosystem degradation and conversion are leading to a widespread reduction in the provision of ecosystem services. It is crucial for the governance of regional land spaces to rapidly identify key areas for ecosystem restoration. Herein, we combined the InVEST Habitat Quality Model with the granularity inverse method to identify ecological sources in Jiashi county, China, based on the “source-corridor” ecological security pattern paradigm. The minimum cumulative resistance model and circuit theory were adopted to diagnose the ecological “pinch points”, barrier points, break points, and key restoration areas for land space. Our results show that: (1) the area of the ecological source and the total length of the ecological corridor were identified as 1331.13 km2 and 316.30 km, respectively; (2) there were 164 key ecological “pinch points” and 69 key ecological barrier points in Jiashi county, with areas of 15.13 km2 and 14.57 km2, respectively. Based on the above ecological security pattern, recovery strategies are put forward to improve regional ecosystem health. This study describes the best practices which can be used to guide the planning and implementation of ecosystem restoration at the local landscape scale.

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Wei Huang

Papers

Construction and optimization of ecological security patterns based on social equity perspective: A case study in Wuhan, China