Constructing and optimizing ecological network at county and town scale: The case of Shilin County, China

Abstract High-intensive land development had led to increasingly fragmented urban habitat patches, and the contradiction between regional development and ecological protection is gradually intensified. This ecological problem is spreading from cities to counties and towns, which are mainly villages and towns. Constructing a reasonable ecological network is an effective way to connect fragmented habitats and balance regional morphological and spatial patterns. Taking the Shilin County of the Yunnan province, China as the study area, morphological spatial pattern analysis and connectivity analysis were used together to identify the key ecological source areas and their importance levels. The comprehensive resistance surface based on the migration characteristics of terrestrial animals was assembled based on five variables (altitude; slope; distance to road; distance to population centers; land use map). The gravity model was used to identify the priority of the ecological corridors, and the ecological networks was derived. The results show that the initially constructed ecological network includes 11 ecological sources and 26 ecological corridors, of which seven are important ecological corridors that need priority construction. However, the ecological networks were less distributed in the northern regions, so three supplementary ecological sources and ten supplementary ecological corridors were added to optimize the ecological network. In addition, there are significant differences in the size and number of ecological source sites and corridors between townships, and targeted construction strategies are necessary. The in-depth analysis from county to township makes the construction and management of ecological networks more maneuverable in national administration. This study provides guidance for constructing ecological network structures in townships with complex landscape types, and may also provide lessons for other regions. Through an in-depth analysis from county to town, this study can provide guidance to construct the township ecological network structure with complex landscape types and provide reference for other regions as well.