Analysis of the Characteristics of Ecological Security Zoning and Its Dynamic Change Pattern: A Case Study of the Weibei Area

Yue Zhang, Liyuan Zhang, Kanhua Yu and Yifan Zou
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Yue Zhang: School of Architecture, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710061, China
Liyuan Zhang: School of Water and Environment, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710061, China
Kanhua Yu: School of Architecture, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710061, China
Yifan Zou: School of Architecture, Chang’an University, Xi’an 710061, China

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 17, 1-12

Abstract: The development pattern of agriculture and energy exploitation in the southern marginal area of the Loess Plateau is widespread in the northern part of China. As a typical example, the fragile ecological area in the Weibei region is greatly affected by human factors, which makes the local ecological environment and social sustainability disturbed to varying degrees. Taking the Weibei region as the study area, through the comprehensive analysis of social, economic, and climate data, an index system suitable for the ecological security assessment of the Weibei region was constructed. The ecological security of this region was quantitatively evaluated by spatial principal component analysis (SPCA), and its ecological security partition was divided and analyzed. There were five zones at different levels, and I to V represented the development of ecological security from a low level to a high level. The results showed that from 1997 to 2017, the ecological security of different districts and counties in the Weibei region showed different trends. For example, the ecological security index of Tongguan County, Chengcheng County, and Pucheng County continued to decrease, but the overall index value was still high, and the ecological security index of Dali County, Fuping County, and Hancheng County increased. During this period, the ecological security of regions I and II continued to increase, while regions IV and V first decreased and then increased. At the same time, the area of the ecological security buffer region increased year by year. This study can provide a feasible method for assessing ecological security of the current regional model of mixed agriculture and energy extraction industry.

Keywords: Weibei area; spatial principal component; ecological security zoning; ecological security index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
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