Construction of Ecological Security Patterns in Nature Reserves Based on Ecosystem Services and Circuit Theory: A Case Study in Wenchuan, China

Jianying Xu, Feifei Fan, Yanxu Liu, Jianquan Dong and Jixing Chen
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Jianying Xu: College of Resource, Environmental and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China
Feifei Fan: College of Resource, Environmental and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China
Yanxu Liu: State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
Jianquan Dong: Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
Jixing Chen: College of Resource, Environmental and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing 100048, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 17, 1-15

Abstract: Facing the demands of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service improvement, the spatial pattern optimization of nature reserves has always been a research topic of interest. However, there remains a lack of methodological guidance in the planning of nature reserves and the surrounding areas. To promote the landscape sustainability of nature reserves, we constructed ecological security patterns (ESPs) with two scenarios as a case study in Wenchuan, China. In detail, the ecological sources were identified by ecosystem service evaluation, and the resistance surface was characterized by the habitat quality. The ecological corridors were determined based on circuit theory and the minimum cumulative resistance model. The ecological sources were mainly aggregated in the protected areas, with an area of more than 1000 ha; the high-resistance values were mainly in the area with dense roads or high elevation. There were 21 corridors in the scenario of only optimizing the nature reserve, while 31 corridors were identified when considering non-nature reserves, and the landscape connectivity was enhanced accordingly. The result supported constructing the ESPs between nature and non-nature reserves in Wenchuan to further protect pandas, and a methodological contribution was made to understand the differences of ESPs between them, thus supporting a methodological formulation of sustainable landscape patterns.

Keywords: ecological security patterns; ecosystem services; circuit theory; landscape transformation; nature reserves (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (15)

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