Linking ecosystem service flow to water-related ecological security pattern: A methodological approach applied to a coastal province of China

Promoting ecological conservation through multi-objective ecological early warning and network regulation in the Karst Plateau, China

Ecological security networks (ESN) offer viable solutions to promote a synergistic development between ecological conservation and economic growth. However, human perceptions of ecosystem degradation often fail to keep pace with the rapid evolution of ecological damage. Therefore, we take the Karst Plateau (KP), which is a typical ecologically fragile area, as a research object, and select the SSP1-RCP1.9 (SSP119), SSP2-RCP4.5 (SSP245), and SSP5-RCP8.5 (SSP585) scenarios. The future evolutionary trends of ESN are predicted from the scarcity of ecosystem services (ES). Introduces the complex network theory to analyze the ESN microstructure's topological characteristics. Through classified regulation and zoning management to achieve early warning of ecological security. The study found that: (1) High-quality supply space is gradually shrinking owing to the ES demand shock. (2) The spatial distribution of ecological source sites is uneven, with the original large-scale ecological source areas shifting to small and dispersed ones. The area of ecological source areas will decrease significantly over time, especially in the SSP245 scenario. (3) As ecological source areas are subjected to increased incision, communities with more ecological nodes are more likely to form in future scenarios, with a tendency for important nodes to migrate southwards. (4) KP faces the challenge of rational configuration of landscape structure and ES sustainability, which needs to strengthen the supervision and protection of ecological warning zones, construct buffer zones to maintain the structural and functional integrity of ecological protection zones, and pay attention to the role of ecological improvement zones in providing sustained human well-being for the future. KP is a typical ecologically fragile zone, and the multi-objective ecological security early warning provides a strong decision-making basis for further ecological protection, as well as an ESN construction scheme that can be used as a reference for other ecologically fragile zones.

Construction of ecological security pattern in combination with landslide sensitivity: A case study of Yan'an City, China

The ecological security pattern can harmonize the relationship between natural environmental protection and socio-economic development. This study proposes a regional ecological security pattern optimization framework by integrating theory and practice with landslide sensitivity and landscape structure. Using Yan'an City as an example, this study optimizes the landscape layout of preliminary ecological sources. The landslide sensitivity index is generated using the information value model and then used to adjust the ecological resistance surface. The Minimum Cumulative Resistance (MCR) approach is used to extract ecological corridors, locate ecological nodes utilizing circuit theory, and outline crucial ecological control areas. The results demonstrate: (1) the ecological sources are primarily composed of forestlands, with a total area of 2,352.2400 km2, concentrated in the southwest, central, and southeast regions. The optimal landscape granularity for the source patches is 600 m. (2) Yan'an is divided into four landslide sensitivity level zones: extremely high, high, medium, and low, with the overall landslide sensitivity of the region being high. (3) The highest ecological resistance is observed in built-up land and the lowest in forestland. The total number of ecological corridors is 26, avoiding most of the highly sensitive areas of landslides. (4) The number of ecological pinch points is 61, while the ecological barrier points amounted to 54. The critical ecological control areas consist mainly of cropland, forestland, and grassland, and differentiated restoration strategies are proposed to address their unique characteristics. The findings of the research can offer scientific guidance for the practice of ecological security protection in geohazard-prone areas.

Identifying carbon sequestration's priority supply areas from the standpoint of ecosystem service flow: A case study for Northwestern China's Shiyang River Basin

Finding important supply areas helps maintain the ecological security of the region and promotes the creation of healthy ecosystems. By considering the ecosystem service flows (ESF), priority provisioning area studies can be approached from a new perspective. This study describes the real supply in terms of flows. The goal was to reveal the priority-ranked supply pattern of ecosystem carbon sequestration services (ECSS) in the Shiyang River Basin (SRB). First and foremost, soil respiration models and Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model were used to examine the supply of ECSS, and a combination of natural and human factors was used to determine the demand for ECSS. Second, Python was used to illustrate the ECSS flow trajectories and flows. Lastly, and utilized in conjunction with System Conservation Planning (SCP) to determine supply regions of importance. The results show that, first, the spatial distribution of ECSS supply and demand clearly demonstrates heterogeneity. This is reflected in the spatial characteristics of supply, which are "high in the south and low in the north," and demand, which is "high in the urban areas and low in the suburbs." Second, the middle and lower portions of the basin, where there is little precipitation and little vegetation, are home to the majority of the locations with poor carbon sequestration fluxes. These areas accounted for almost 60 % of the entire watershed area over time. Third, the first priority area of ECSS occupies 19.3 % of the basin's total area, while the second priority area occupies 21.46 %. For the major supply regions, strict ecological protection laws must be implemented going forward in order to ensure the ability to sustain ECSS supply. The long-term growth of SRB as well as ecological and environmental management can benefit from this research's foundational role in policymaking.