Assessment of habitat suitability in the Upper Reaches of the Min River in China

Abstract

Habitat richness influences and even determines biological diversity. Plant habitat suitability assessment can provide technical guidance and information support for ecological restoration. Thirteen factors in three categories of terrain, meteorology and soil were chosen to build a habitat suitability assessment index framework in the Upper Reaches of the Min River, based on the local natural environment and the actual influencing factors of vegetative growth. Combined with the Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP) and entropy method, which were used to calculate weights of indexes, habitat suitability was studied by using a multi-objective linear weighting model and geographic information systems (GIS) spatial analysis techniques. The assessment results are as follows: Altitude, soil stability, aspect and slope have more important effects on plant habitat suitability in the Upper Reaches of the Min River, and their weights are 0.311, 0.260, 0.198 and 0.125, respectively. Suitable and sub-suitable habitats cover 4431.80 km 2 and 6171.12 km 2 , respectively; most of which are distributed along both sides of rivers and have higher suitability. Unsuitable habitats cover the largest area (6679.76 km 2 ), accounting for 29.83% of the whole area; and the worst unsuitable habitats are 5107.23 km 2 (22.81%); they account for more than half of the study area. These results indicate that the plant habitat in the Upper Reaches of the Min River is poor and ecological restoration is both urgent and difficult. Therefore, based on the principle of taking measures suitable to the habitat in ecological restoration projects, ecological and engineering measures should be combined to have better effects, while increasing the strength of ecological protection.

Bibliometric Analysis of Soil and Landscape Stability, Sensitivity and Resistivity

“…This indicates that there is no clear definition of stability, and that it is often used synonymously with sensitivity. However, other connotations of "stability" were observed in relation to specific research fields; some were based on the stability of soil [79,81,82], while others were based on the stability of landscapes, notably in reference to changes in land use [73]. Probably, the absence of a clear definition is due to the fact that "stability" may refer to any of the various properties of soils or landscapes, while "sensitivity" does not change depending on the field of study.…”

“…Landscape stability assessments measure the risk faced by a certain area after a disturbance and analyze the relationship between that disturbance and stability, as well as other relationships between the structure of ecological areas and their stability. [79] ( Guo et al, 2015) Soil stability indicates the extent of the anti-erosion properties of various soil types, [80] (DeJong et al, 2010) the ratio of initial penetration resistance and the remolded resistance.…”

Decision Analysis of Slope Ecological Restoration Based on AHP

“…Every test area is 300 m 2 . It uses cast-in-situ grids technology, external-soil spray seeding technology and vegetation bag technology (Guo et al 2009), respectively, in the test areas.…”

Exploring the Relationship between the Arid Valley Boundary’s Displacement and Climate Change during 1999–2013 in the Upper Reaches of the Min River, China

“…As the typical fragile ecological-environment zone in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, the arid valley is characterized by a low threshold on ecological security, but is high risk in ecological degradation, with poor habitat suitability, frequent geological disasters (earthquake, landslide, debris flow, etc. ), and strong human activities [26,33]. Ecological restoration and reconstruction in the arid valley has become an important aspect of current academic research and government work [17,34].…”