Considering dynamic landscape ecological risk to identify ecological security patterns in urban agglomeration

Abstract

Identifying priority areas for conservation and developing strategies to minimize the potential risks arising from urban development is crucial to achieving ecosystem sustainability. The construction and maintenance of ecological security patterns are essential for ensuring regional ecological security, especially in rapidly expanding urban agglomerations. In this study, ecological security patterns were identified for the Changsha–Zhuzhou–Xiangtan (CZT) urban agglomeration, China. Ecological sources were selected by integrating ecosystem services and landscape ecological risk and ecological corridors were identified using the minimum cumulative resistance model. Our findings indicated that areas with high landscape ecological risk accounted for 33.09% of the total area, primarily concentrated in the northern and central-western plains. Approximately 45% of the CZT urban agglomeration provided a high level of ecosystem services; however, 16.6% of these areas were exposed to high landscape ecological risk. The ecological security patterns consisted of 58 ecological sources and 137 ecological corridors, and ecological sources were mainly distributed in the northeastern and southern parts of the study area and exhibited significant fragmentation in the western CZT urban agglomeration. The framework proposed in this study, which simultaneously considers dynamic landscape ecological risk and ecosystem services importance, provides an effective approach for identifying ecological security patterns.