Identifying Ecological Corridors and Networks in Mountainous Areas

Abstract

Since the 1950s, human activities have been driving economic development and land changes, hindering the conservation of biological habitats and landscape connectivity. Constructing ecological networks is an effective means to avoid habitat destruction and fragmentation. Mountain areas are hotspots of biological habitats and biodiversity; however, the pace of urbanization in mountain areas is also accelerating. To protect an ecosystem more effectively, it is necessary to identify ecological corridors and ecological networks. Therefore, based on the Minimal Cumulative Resistance model and taking Chongqing in China as an example, the identification of potential ecological corridors and the construction of an ecological network in Chongqing were realized using the Linkage Mapper software. The results were as follows: (1) From 2005 to 2015, the patch area of cultivated land and grassland in Chongqing decreased by 0.08% and 1.46%, respectively, while that of built-up areas increased by 1.5%. The fragmentation degree of cultivated land was higher, and the internal connectivity of forestry areas was worse. (2) In total, 24 ecological sources were selected, and 87 potential ecological corridors and 35 ecological nodes were generated using the Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis and the Conefor2.6 software. The total length of the ecological network in Chongqing is 2524.34 km, with an average corridor length of 29.02 km. (3) The overall complexity and network efficiency are high, but the spatial distribution of ecological corridors is uneven, especially in the southwest of Chongqing.

Construction of Ecological Network of Yangtze Huaihe River Diversion Project (Anhui) Based on Landscape Connectivity Index

“…erefore, this study uses the MSPA model and connectivity index to identify and extract the source, modifies the resistance surface with connectivity index, integrates MCR model and circuit model to identify the potential ecological corridors, completes the construction and evaluation of ecological network, discusses the optimal construction method of ecological network, and points out the direction for the ecological network planning of the Yangtze River to Huaihe River Project (Anhui). It is expected to provide scientific basis for the optimization of ecological network and ecological environment protection of regional water transfer projects [20][21][22].…”

Ecological Corridor Construction Based on Least-Cost Modeling Using Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) Nighttime Light Data and Normalized Difference Vegetation Index

“…The differences between two distances were calculated with Equation (6). Most routes in the north experienced a change of less than 1% due to the minimal influence of nighttime light.…”

“…The least-cost paths along which the least resistance was accumulated (lines with different co Actual ecological corridors usually require a certain width and have a dif pared with the least-cost paths. The least-cost corridors are the bands with The differences between two distances were calculated with Equation (6). Most routes in the north experienced a change of less than 1% due to the minimal influence of nighttime light.…”

“…Hence, it is necessary to construct ecological network on large-scale land areas [4,5]. Ecological networks mainly consist of habitat patches and ecological corridors [6]. To construct effective ecological networks, it is important to consider the size of the habitat patches, which needs to be big enough to support populations of the focal species [7,8].…”

Linking Ecosystem Service and MSPA to Construct Landscape Ecological Network of the Huaiyang Section of the Grand Canal

“…The research scale has covered different countries [30,31], provinces [32,33], cities [34,35], urban central district [36], counties [37,38], and other administrative division scales. The study area has involved desert oasis [39], plateau [40], mountainous area [41], estuary delta [42], watershed [43,44], urban agglomerations [45,46], and other different types of regional spaces. In terms of research topics, many scholars have focused on the structure of ecological networks [25,28], identification of ecological networks [47,48], ecological network evaluation [45,49], and ecological network optimization measures [36,50] conducted in a series of studies.…”