Identifying priority areas for conservation in the lower Yellow River basin from an ecological network perspective

ABSTRACT Taking the lower Yellow River basin as the study area, this study aims to construct ecological networks to mitigate the negative impacts of rapid urbanization on the ecosystem. Ecological sources were identified based on morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA), habitat quality and landscape connectivity. The ecological resistance surface was constructed and corrected by integrating natural and anthropogenic factors. The spatial range of ecological corridors and some of their key nodes were identified based on circuit theory. The ecological network (EN) was finally optimized using a similarity search and cost connectivity modules. The results show that the optimized ecological network structure is more stable than before. The EN includes 23 ecological sources with a total area of 5464.8 km2 and 30 ecological corridor clusters with a total area of 2205.92 km2. Through the internal landscape heterogeneity of the corridor, 28 ecological node areas and 75 barrier areas were identified as key protection and restoration areas, with a total area of 78.44 km2 and 372.79 km2, respectively. Through the construction and optimization of EN, this study identifies key areas for promoting ecological sustainability and provides a useful framework for coordinating regional ecological conservation and economic development.