Ecological risk assessment of geohazards in Natural World Heritage Sites: an empirical analysis of Bogda, Tianshan

Abstract

Ecological risk assessment plays an important role in avoiding disasters and reducing losses. Natural world heritage site is the most precious natural assets on earth, yet few studies have assessed ecological risks from the perspective of world heritage conservation and management. A methodology for considering ecological threats and vulnerabilities and focusing on heritage value was introduced and discussed for the Bogda component of the Xinjiang Tianshan Natural World Heritage Site. Three important results are presented. (1) Criteria layers and ecological risk showed obvious spatial heterogeneity. Extremely high-risk and high-risk areas, accounting for 13.60% and 32.56%, respectively, were mainly gathered at Tianchi Lake and Bogda Glacier, whereas the extremely low-risk and low-risk areas, covering 1.33% and 17.51% of the site,were mainly distributed to the north and scattered around in the southwest montane region. (2) The level of risk was positively correlated with the type of risk, and as the level of risk increases, the types of risk increase. Only two risk types were observed in the extremely low-risk areas, whereas six risk types were observed in the high-risk areas and eight risk types were observed in the extremely high-risk areas. (3) From the perspective of risk probability and ecological damage, four risk management categories were proposed, and correlative strategies were proposed to reduce the possibility of ecological risk and to sustain or enhance heritage value.

Conservation Value of World Natural Heritage Sites’ Outstanding Universal Value via Multiple Techniques—Bogda, Xinjiang Tianshan

“…The bioecological component of OUV (criteria ix, x) for a WNHS reflects the ecological processes and characteristics of plants and animals in the ecosystem of the respective biogeographical area, the habitat and biodiversity. Biodiversity incorporates aspects such as species diversity, species composition, flora, vegetation type, fauna, vertical natural zone, International Union for the Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission (IUCN/SSC) habitat type, habitat integrity, species richness, endangered species and endemic species [21][22][23][24][25].IUCN natural heritage experts comprehensively evaluate potential heritage areas to determine whether they satisfy the WNHS criteria in terms of the integrity, originality and threats to the OUV [6,12]. Integrity requires that OUV elements and areas with heritage values have uncompromising and regional holistic characteristics [13,26].…”

“…Animal species, under the stress of external disturbances, are typically sensitive to changes in living habitats, foraging sites, migration routes and so forth [29]. At the same time, environmental factors such as altitude, slope, temperature and precipitation are root causes of regional formation and thus contribute to the formation of the environmental component of OUV [21,25,31,34]. Therefore, in the assessment of heritage value, OUV elements should be comprehensively evaluated according to the objective resource situation (integrity and specificity) and the actual social and environmental conditions [14,22,24].Currently, research surrounding OUV mostly involves explanations of the significance of OUV to a WNHS; the methods used to study this are relatively simple [7,9,35].…”

“…Such characteristics are then studied using a variety of methods, including the Pressure-State-Response framework model [36], comprehensive index method [42], Radial Basis Function neural network model [43], multi-objective decision model [44], the Grey Model (GM (1,1)) [45]. Research methods for index weighting include objective methods, such as the entropy weight method, mean square error method and principal component analysis method, as well as subjective weighting methods, including the analytic hierarchy process, grey correlation degree analysis and the Delphi method [15,21,39,46]. Additionally, scholars often use field plot survey methods to record basic information at a given location (altitude, slope, aspect, slope-direction, geographic location, etc.)…”

“…The heritage value of Bogda lies in the complete vertical zone spectrum on the northern slope of Xinjiang Tianshan, mountain lakes, glaciers and species diversity of rare and endangered animals and plants [48]. Currently, research on Bogda includes forest fire prevention measures [49], ground lichen community characterization [50], vertical natural band spectrum extraction [51], glacial thickness and reserve variation characterization [52], lake ecosystem service function value evaluation [53], tectonic belt and orogenic mechanism analysis [54], tourism landscape resource assessment and protection [55], ecological security differentiation and driving mechanism identification [48], geological ecological risk assessment [21] and multi-target monitoring system construction [44]. Scholars have analyzed the characteristics of a certain value element and also comprehensively evaluated the heritage site from the perspective of ecological security, ecological risk, landscape security and ecosystem function [48,56].…”

“…The bioecological component of OUV (criteria ix, x) for a WNHS reflects the ecological processes and characteristics of plants and animals in the ecosystem of the respective biogeographical area, the habitat and biodiversity. Biodiversity incorporates aspects such as species diversity, species composition, flora, vegetation type, fauna, vertical natural zone, International Union for the Conservation of Nature Species Survival Commission (IUCN/SSC) habitat type, habitat integrity, species richness, endangered species and endemic species [21][22][23][24][25].…”