Abstract:
The scientific construction of ecological security pattern and the identification of key areas for ecological protection and restoration are the essential guarantees and important approaches to systematically promote the goal of ecological restoration and realize the green transformation development and ecological security of resource-exhausted cities. Taking Jiawang District of Xuzhou City, a typical resource-exhausted city in eastern China as an example, this paper analyzed the effectiveness of ecological restoration and management in Jiawang District during its green transformation by quantitatively assessing the changes in five ecosystem service functions: soil retention, carbon storage, habitat quality, water yield, and carbon sequestration and oxygen release. On this basis, based on hot spot analysis, minimum cumulative resistance model and circuit theory, the ecological security pattern elements such as ecological sources, ecological corridors, ecological “pinch points” and obstacle areas are identified, the ecological security pattern and its dynamic changes from 2000 to 2020 are analyzed, and the key areas for ecological protection and restoration are identified. The results show that from 2000 to 2020, the ecosystem services in Jiawang District show an increasing trend, the ecological environment gradually improved. The number of patches in the ecological source area gradually decreased, but the total area continued to increase, and the corridor distribution changed from “more in the west and less in the east” to a “more balanced ecological security pattern”. The key areas for ecological protection and restoration were determined to include 10 important ecological source areas, 39 important ecological corridors, 5.53 km
2 key area for obstacle restoration and 1.70 km
2 key area for corridor protection, mostly located in the southwest of the main city and the south of Pan’an Lake where the ecological flow intensity is high and the corridor is narrow, so the key restoration and protection should be strengthened. Based on the coverage types of the key areas for ecological protection and restoration, recommendations include establishing a red-line concept for important ecological source areas, strengthening the effective connection between ecological and non-ecological land uses, expanding the scope of ecological corridors, and increasing vegetation restoration along the corridors as part of the protection and restoration strategies. The research results can provide effective technical support for determining the priority of ecological restoration planning in resource-exhausted cities.