scholarly journals Construction and Optimization of an Urban Ecological Security Pattern Based on Habitat Quality Assessment and the Minimum Cumulative Resistance Model in Shenzhen City, China

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (7) ◽  
pp. 847
Author(s):  
Yu-Zhe Zhang ◽  
Zhi-Yun Jiang ◽  
Yang-Yang Li ◽  
Zhi-Guang Yang ◽  
Xiao-Hong Wang ◽  
...  

The rapid development of urbanization has caused many ecological issues and greatly threatened the sustainable development of human society. The construction of ecological security patterns (ESPs) offers an effective way to balance ecological conservation and urbanization. This study aimed to take the highly urbanized city of Shenzhen, China, as a study area to construct an urban ESP and put forward suggestions for the urban development of ecological security. Ecological sources were identified through the Habitat Quality module in the InVEST model, and ecological corridors, strategic ecological nodes, and stepping-stone patches were extracted based on the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model. These elements together constituted the ESP. In particular, with the results of the continuous decline in the overall habitat quality, this study identified ten ecological sources with superior habitat quality, mainly distributed in rural woodlands, in urban green land, and in forest park patches. An optimized pattern for Shenzhen City with one axis, three belts, and four zones is proposed, with the study area divided into an ecological preservation zone, a limited development zone, an optimized development zone, and a key development zone. Moreover, forty-five ecological corridors were extracted and graded into three levels, presenting a spatial pattern of one axis and three belts. The appropriate widths of these ecological corridors were suggested to be between 30 and 60 m in Shenzhen City. In addition, we identified twenty-five ecological nodes, sixteen ecological fracture points, and sixteen stepping stones to improve the maintenance and construction of the ecological corridor network. More generally, this study demonstrates a scientific approach to identifying ESPs based on habitat quality, and can serve as a reference for the planning of urban ecological function regionalization.

2013 ◽  
Vol 423-426 ◽  
pp. 1371-1376
Author(s):  
Yong Hong Li ◽  
Bao Xiang ◽  
Yu Hu

The construction of regional ecological security network system can effectively ease urban environmental pollution and enhance the comprehensive competitiveness of the region. This paper, based on Suzhou National New & Hi-tech Industrial Development Zone (SND) as a study case, intends to explore an approach to establish the ecological security pattern for rapid development region. The paper has established an ecological security critical areas composed by Mt. Dayang, Mt. Shu, Mt. Jilong, Mt. Fenghuang and other mountains as well as Tai Lake Wetland Park, three ecological corridors comprising greenbelt along Taihu Avenue, Beijing-Hangzhou Grand Canal and greenbelt along the Canal, Huguang Canal and greenbelt along the Canal, as well as urban parks such as Dabai Marsh, Mt. He, Mt. Shi and Zhengshanlu Park etc. and junctions between roads and rivers etc. to make up the ecological nodes so as to build an ecological security network pattern for SND, which is of great significance for the regions sustainable development.


Author(s):  
Qinglong Ding ◽  
Yang Chen ◽  
Lingtong Bu ◽  
Yanmei Ye

The past decades were witnessing unprecedented habitat degradation across the globe. It thus is of great significance to investigate the impacts of land use change on habitat quality in the context of rapid urbanization, particularly in developing countries. However, rare studies were conducted to predict the spatiotemporal distribution of habitat quality under multiple future land use scenarios. In this paper, we established a framework by coupling the future land use simulation (FLUS) model with the Intergrated Valuation of Environmental Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model. We then analyzed the habitat quality change in Dongying City in 2030 under four scenarios: business as usual (BAU), fast cultivated land expansion scenario (FCLE), ecological security scenario (ES) and sustainable development scenario (SD). We found that the land use change in Dongying City, driven by urbanization and agricultural reclamation, was mainly characterized by the transfer of cultivated land, construction land and unused land; the area of unused land was significantly reduced. While the habitat quality in Dongying City showed a degradative trend from 2009 to 2017, it will be improved from 2017 to 2030 under four scenarios. The high-quality habitat will be mainly distributed in the Yellow River Estuary and coastal areas, and the areas with low-quality habitat will be concentrated in the central and southern regions. Multi-scenario analysis shows that the SD will have the highest habitat quality, while the BAU scenario will have the lowest. It is interesting that the ES scenario fails to have the highest capacity to protect habitat quality, which may be related to the excessive saline alkali land. Appropriate reclamation of the unused land is conducive to cultivated land protection and food security, but also improving the habitat quality and giving play to the versatility and multidimensional value of the agricultural landscape. This shows that the SD of comprehensive coordination of urban development, agricultural development and ecological protection is an effective way to maintain the habitat quality and biodiversity.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (5) ◽  
pp. 471
Author(s):  
Bo Mu ◽  
Guohang Tian ◽  
Gengyu Xin ◽  
Miao Hu ◽  
Panpan Yang ◽  
...  

An understanding of the scientific layout of surface water space is crucial for the sustainable development of human society and the ecological environment. The objective of this study was to use land-use/land-cover data to identify the spatiotemporal dynamic change processes and the influencing factors over the past three decades in Henan Province, central China. Multidisciplinary theories (landscape ecology and graph theory) and methods (GIS spatial analysis and SPSS correlation analysis) were used to quantify the dynamic changes in surface water pattern and connectivity. Our results revealed that the water area decreased significantly during the periods of 1990–2000 and 2010–2018 due to a decrease in tidal flats and linear waters, but increased significantly in 2000–2010 due to an increase in patchy waters. Human construction activities, socioeconomic development and topography were the key factors driving the dynamics of water pattern and connectivity. The use of graph metrics (node degree, betweenness centrality, and delta probability of connectivity) in combination with landscape metrics (Euclidean nearest-neighbor distance) can help establish the parameters of threshold distance between connected habitats, identify hubs and stepping stones, and determine the relatively important water patches that require priority protection or development.


Land ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 (8) ◽  
pp. 774
Author(s):  
Hyun-Jung Hong ◽  
Choong-Ki Kim ◽  
Hyun-Woo Lee ◽  
Woo-Kyun Lee

Biodiversity loss is progressing despite biodiversity being essential for human survival, prosperity, and well-being. Conservation, restoration, and sustainable use of the habitat, given that its change is the most prominent factor causing the deterioration of biodiversity, represents a highly effective way of securing biodiversity. Therefore, we assessed and monitored habitat quality as a proxy for biodiversity with habitat quantity in Jeju Island, South Korea. We used an InVEST model with data on the habitat type, suitability, sensitivity, accessibility, and threat factors. Natural habitats throughout Jeju had rapidly decreased in area by 24.9% from 1989 to 2019, and this change contributed to the degradation of habitat quality by 15.8%. We provided significant evidence on the critical degradation of habitat for a long period of over 30 years and highlighted the urgent need for policies and behaviors that enhance biodiversity. We proposed appropriate strategies to prompt people to conserve better, restore effectively, and use biodiversity sustainably. We expect that our findings will provide scientific and evidence-based guidance for policy-making on biodiversity enhancement and will further support achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals and Aichi Biodiversity Targets, in addition to compliance with the New Deal for Nature and People.


Author(s):  
Rong Guo ◽  
Tong Wu ◽  
Mengran Liu ◽  
Mengshi Huang ◽  
Luigi Stendardo ◽  
...  

Urban agglomerations have become a new geographical unit in China, breaking the administrative fortresses between cities, which means that the population and economic activities between cities will become more intensive in the future. Constructing and optimizing the ecological security pattern of urban agglomerations is important for promoting harmonious social-economic development and ecological protection. Using the Harbin-Changchun urban agglomeration as a case study, we have identified ecological sources based on the evaluation of ecosystem functions. Based on the resistance surface modified by nighttime light (NTL) data, the potential ecological corridors were identified using the least-cost path method, and key ecological corridors were extracted using the gravity model. By combining 15 ecological sources, 119 corridors, 3 buffer zones, and 77 ecological nodes, the ecological security pattern (ESP) was constructed. The main land-use types composed of ecological sources and corridors are forest land, cultivated land, grassland, and water areas. Some ecological sources are occupied by construction, while unused land has the potential for ecological development. The ecological corridors in the central region are distributed circularly and extend to southeast side in the form of tree branches with the Songhua River as the central axis. Finally, this study proposes an optimizing pattern with "four belts, four zones, one axis, nine corridors, ten clusters and multi-centers" to provide decision makers with spatial strategies with respect to the conflicts between urban development and ecological protection during rapid urbanization.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (10) ◽  
pp. 5747
Author(s):  
Dehuan Li ◽  
Wei Sun ◽  
Fan Xia ◽  
Yixuan Yang ◽  
Yujing Xie

Biodiversity maintenance is a crucial ecosystem service. Due to time limits and data availability, assessing biodiversity using indicators or models has become a hot topic in recent decades. However, whether some proposed indicators can explain biodiversity well at the local scale is still unclear. This study attempted to test whether the habitat quality index (HQI) as measured using the integrated valuation of ecosystem services and trade-offs (InVEST) model could explain variations in bird diversity in New Jiangwan Town, a rapidly urbanized region of Shanghai, China. The relationships from 2002 to 2013 among HQI and the two diversity indices, species richness and species abundance, were analyzed using Fisher’s exact test and gray correlation analysis. No significant association was found. Habitat connectivity was then integrated to develop a new combined indicator of habitat quality and connectivity index (HQCI). The associations between HQCI and the two diversity indices were improved significantly. The results indicated that connectivity may be an important factor explaining the diversity of certain species at a local scale. More empirical studies should be conducted to provide scientific evidence relating habitat quality to biodiversity.


2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (22) ◽  
pp. 6416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ouyang ◽  
Wang ◽  
Zhu

Coordinating ecosystem service supply and demand equilibrium and utilizing machine learning to dynamically construct an ecological security pattern (ESP) can help better understand the impact of urban development on ecological processes, which can be used as a theoretical reference in coupling economic growth and environmental protection. Here, the ESP of the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan urban agglomeration was constructed, which made use of the Bayesian network model to dynamically identify the ecological sources. The ecological corridor and ecological strategy points were identified using the minimum cumulative resistance model and circuit theory. The ESP was constructed by combining seven ecological sources, “two horizontal and three vertical” ecological corridors, and 37 ecological strategy points. Our results found spatial decoupling between the supply and demand of ecosystem services (ES) and the degradation in areas with high demand for ES. The ecological sources and ecological corridors of the urban agglomeration were mainly situated in forestlands and water areas. The terrestrial ecological corridor was distributed along the outer periphery of the urban agglomeration, while the aquatic ecological corridor ran from north to south throughout the entire region. The ecological strategic points were mainly concentrated along the boundaries of the built-up area and the intersection between construction land and ecological land. Finally, the ecological sources were found primarily on existing ecological protection zones, which supports the usefulness of machine learning in predicting ecological sources and may provide new insights in developing urban ESP.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jia-shuo Cao ◽  
Yu-qi Yang ◽  
Zheng-yu Deng ◽  
Yuan-dong Hu

Abstract Background Shennongjia is one of the most important ecological function areas and ecologically vulnerable zones in the world. With the rapid development of social economies, especially tourism, the ecological environment of Shennongjia has experienced profound changes. To describe an assessment method of ecological vulnerability, explain its application in Shennongjia, and propose optimization strategies to reduce the risk of ecosystem vulnerability and maintain regional ecological security and stability. Results (1) During the study period, the overall ecological vulnerability of Shennongjia is in a mild vulnerability level, exhibiting differentiation characteristics of high in the northeast and low in the southwest. High vulnerability zones are mainly distributed in the main towns and roads of Shennongjia. (2) The risk of ecological vulnerability of the entire region presents the characteristics of continuous decline. The ecological vulnerability composite index reaches the lowest value of 2.51 in 2018. (3) Land-use types, population density, and vegetation coverage are the main factors driving the evolution of ecological vulnerability. (4) A high level of coupling coordination exists between ecological vulnerability and landscape patterns, and the contribution of patch number and aggregation index to ecological vulnerability is substantial. Conclusions Analyses of the ecological vulnerability of Shennongjia shows that the entire region is in a mild vulnerability level. The extreme vulnerability risk of the northeast, south and southwest areas appears gradually, the vulnerability degree of the ecological environment shows polarization. The evolution of ecological environment in Shennongjia is the result of the interaction between human activities and natural environment. This study offers an effective way to assess ecological vulnerability and provides some strategies and guidance for improving ecological security.


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