Identification of Priority Areas for Ecological Restoration in Coal Mining Areas with a High Groundwater Table Based on Ecological Security Pattern and Ecological Vulnerability

Abstract

Resource exploitation and rapid urbanization in coal mining areas with a high groundwater table (CMA-HGT) have created double pressure on regional ecological security and increased the vulnerability of the ecological environment. Ecological restoration should be carried out to balance the relationship between economic development and ecological and environmental protection. An ecological security pattern (ESP) can identify key locations that are critical to maintaining ecosystem service stability and landscape connectivity, with territories displaying relatively high vulnerability identified as priority areas for ecological restoration. The Jining planning area (JPA), a typical representative of CMA-HGT, was taken as the study area. To construct the integrated ESP, ecological sources were identified by measuring the importance of multiple ecosystem services and landscape connectivity. Then, the ecological resistance surface was constructed, and the ecological corridors, pinch points, and barriers were determined using circuit theory. Ecological vulnerability (EV) evaluation was performed from the perspectives of natural factors and human activities. The study results showed that the spatial superposition of ESP and EV can effectively identify priority areas for ecological restoration. The ecological restoration priority areas for ecological sources, ecological corridors, and ecological pinch points were 44.56 km2, 11.7 km2, and 9.96 km2, respectively, and corresponding restoration strategies were proposed. Some valuable references were provided for the identification and restoration of priority areas for ecological restoration in CMA-HGT.

Ecological Security Patterns Research Based on Ecosystem Services and Circuit Theory in Southwest China

“…This model utilizes random walk theory to simulate the movement patterns of a random walker between source and target cells within the landscape. Through this approach, the Circuit Theory model identifies areas of notable ecological significance, such as wildlife migration routes and gene flow patterns [26,41,42]. In our study, the simulation of ecological corridors was conducted using Circuitscape 4.0 [40,42].…”

“…Through this approach, the Circuit Theory model identifies areas of notable ecological significance, such as wildlife migration routes and gene flow patterns [26,41,42]. In our study, the simulation of ecological corridors was conducted using Circuitscape 4.0 [40,42]. The Circuitscape running parameters were set as follows: (1) model mode: pairwise mode; (2) calculation mode: use average conductance instead of resistance for connections between cells, and run in low memory mode; (3) plot options: cumulative & max current maps, with focal node currents set to zero; (4) other model parameters are selected as default.…”