Construction of ecological security pattern and connectivity stability evaluation under multi-scenarios simulation : a case study of desert-oasis area in the Yellow River Basin, China

Abstract

Land use change can often threaten ecological space and cause enormous impacts on the ecosystem sustainability, and ecological security patterns (ESPs) had been received more attention in spatial planing. Thus,this paper simulated land use change in future under four development scenarios for the urban agglomerations along the Yellow River Basin(YRB) in Ningxia, identified the ESPs,and assessed the stability of network connectivity for each scenario.The result showed that areas of ecological sources in 2035 under the natural development scenario(NDS),economic development scenario(EDS),food security scenario(FSS),and ecological protection scenario(EPS) are 834.82km2,715.46km2,785.56km2,and 1091.43km2,and the values of overall connectivity（OG）are 0.351,0.466,0.334,0.520,respectively.Under the EPS,the construction of ESPs will have the biggest ecological land use and the best network structure,not only can effectively protect natural ecological,but also reduce the cost of construction in reality.This study provides a valuable reference for diversity and uncertainty of future development,and helps decision-makers management different scales and development scenarios to improve the ecological level of the study area.