CollectHomepage AdvertisementContact usMessage

Arid Land Geography ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (6): 1073-1083.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2023.242

• Regional Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Identification of the key areas of ecological restoration based on the ecological network: A case study of Yan’an City

XU Zhongyang(), WANG Cheng(), GU Tong, WANG Shiyu, PEI Chenyang, ZHANG Qingfeng   

  1. College of Natural Resources and Environment, Northwest A & F University, Xianyang 712000, Shaanxi, China
  • Received:2023-05-27 Revised:2023-08-10 Online:2024-06-25 Published:2024-07-09
  • Contact: WANG Cheng E-mail:xuzhongyang152065@163.com;chengwong@nwsuaf.edu.cn

Abstract:

Delimiting key areas of ecological restoration is the prerequisite and foundation for implementing differentiated ecological restoration strategies. Taking Yan’an City, Shaanxi Province, China as an example, this paper employs morphological spatial pattern analysis to construct landscape patterns and integrate the probability of connectivity index to identify ecological sources. In addition, it utilizes the minimum cumulative resistance model based on impact factors like land use and normalized difference vegetation index to calculate the minimum cumulative resistance difference, extract ecological corridors, construct an ecological network, divide corridor levels by cost connectivity, and analyze network structure characteristics using graph theory. Finally, ecological corridors and landscape patterns are superimposed to identify the critical areas for ecological restoration in Yan’an City. The results show that: (1) Yan’an City has an extensive coverage of forest and grassland, although with scattered overall coverage and poor landscape connectivity. (2) Ecological sources in Yan’an City are mainly distributed in the southwest and southeast, while the northeast has poor habitat quality and is unsuitable for species habitat. (3) Ecological corridors mainly comprised forest landscapes, including 10% of the crucial corridors, with extremely uneven spatial distribution of the ecological networks. (4) Ecological networks’ closure, complexity, and connectivity are low, and the network stability is poor. (5) Islets in Yan’an City are mainly distributed in Luochuan County, with key areas of ecological restoration mainly concentrated in Fu County and Huanglong County, including 21.93% of the Level 1 restoration areas. These results can provide a reference and basis for identifying the critical areas of ecological restoration and constructing ecological networks in Yan’an City.

Key words: key areas of ecological restoration, minimum cumulative resistance difference, ecological network, Yan’an City