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Arid Land Geography ›› 2025, Vol. 48 ›› Issue (12): 2247-2259.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2025.060

• Regional Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Impact of ecological migration on habitat fragmentation in resettlement areas: Take the Shule River Resettlement Project as an example

WANG Lucang1,2(), LIAO Ting1   

  1. 1 College of Geography and Environmental Science, Northwest Normal University, Lanzhou 730070, Gansu, China
    2 Key Laboratory of Resource Environment and Sustainable Development of Oasis, Gansu Province, Lanzhou 730070, Gansu, China
  • Received:2025-02-09 Revised:2025-05-15 Online:2025-12-25 Published:2025-12-30

Abstract:

Ecological migration constitutes a specialized form of relocation aimed at enhancing theliving conditions of environments and alleviating ecological pressure. It represents a strategy, critical for achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. Nevertheless, large-scale migration has intensified habitat fragmentation in resettlement areas. This study employed landscape pattern indices to comprehensively analyze the spatio-temporal dynamics and characteristics of habitat transformation and fragmentation within the Shule River resettlement area, Guazhou County, China. The findings indicated that: (1) During the migration period, artificial habitats progressively replaced the natural ones, following a distinct pattern of migration phases: Initial→intermediate→final→post-migration, characterized by an abrupt change→stabilization→dramatic fluctuation. As the dispersion of migrant resettlement areas increases, the expansion of artificial habitats becomes more pronounced. (2) Key metrics such as the total number of plaques, boundary density, diversity, and uniformity continued to elevate, while spread and aggregation continued to decline. These trends suggest a trajectory toward habitat fragmentation, diversification, and complexity. Large-scale resettlement bases demonstrated higher degrees of fragmentation compared to the small-scale counterparts, underscoring the influence of migration levels on habitat fragmentation. Despite the increasing disruption of natural habitats, artificial habitats (e.g., cultivated and construction lands) exhibited converging fragmentation patterns. Ecological migration was the key cause of habitat disintegration.

Key words: ecological migration, habitat fragmentation, landscape pattern index, artificial habitat expansion, Shule River resettlement area