Assessment of Landscape Ecological Health: A CaseStudy of a Mining City in a Semi-Arid Steppe.

Zhenhua Wu,Bao-Jie He,Shaogang Lei,Qingqing Lu,Yinghong Wang,Linghua Duo,Zhengfu Bian,Shangui Peng

doi:10.3390/ijerph16050752

Abstract

The ecological status of the semi-arid steppes in China is fragile. Under the long-term and high-intensity development of mining, the ecological integrity and biodiversity of steppe landscapes have been destroyed, causing soil pollution, grassland degradation, landscape function defect, and so on. Previous studies have mainly focused on ecosystem health assessment in mining areas. Landscape ecological health (LEH) pays more attention to the interactions between different ecosystems. Therefore, the ecological assessment of mining cities is more suitable on a landscape scale. Meanwhile, the existing LEH assessment index systems are not applicable in ecologically fragile areas with sparse population, underdeveloped economy, and in relatively small research areas. The purpose of this study was to construct a LEH assessment index system and evaluate the LEH of a mining city located in a semi-arid steppe. Xilinhot is a typical semi-arid steppe mining city in China. The contradictions between the human, land and ecological environment are serious. A new model Condition, Vigor, Organization, Resilience, and Ecosystem (CVORE) model was constructed that integrated five subsystems (services) from the perspectives of ecology, landscape ecology, mining science, and geography. This study used the CVORE model to systematically evaluate the LEH in Xilinhot city in terms of five LEH levels, including very healthy, healthy, sub-healthy, unhealthy and morbid landscape. Research results show that the areas of the very healthy, healthy, sub-healthy, unhealthy and morbid landscapes are 13.23, 736.35, 184.5, 66.76 and 20.63 km2, respectively. The healthy landscapes area accounts for 72.08% and most grasslands are healthy. The sub-healthy landscapes are mainly located around areas with higher disturbances due to human activities. The morbid or unhealthy landscapes are concentrated in the mining areas. The proposed CVORE model can enrich the foundations for the quantitative assessment of Landscape Ecological Health of Mining Cities in Semi-arid Steppe (LEHMCSS). This study provided a new LEH assessment approach (CVORE model), which can support landscape ecological restoration, ecological environmental protection and urban planning of the semi-arid steppe mining cities.

Highlights

Grasslands represent the largest terrestrial ecosystem and an important component of the global natural ecosystem
Healthy landscapes account for the majority of the total area, and most grasslands are healthy
It can be seen that the morbid or unhealthy landscapes are concentrated in the mining production and urban living areas, while the landscape gradually becomes healthier from the center to the outside

Summary

Introduction

Grasslands represent the largest terrestrial ecosystem and an important component of the global natural ecosystem They play an important role in animal husbandry development, wind and sand control, soil and water conservation, biodiversity protection and ecological balance [1,2]. The long-term high-intensity development of open-pit coal mines has brought tremendous changes to the structure of surface landscapes, and affected the material circulation and energy flow of landscapes, resulting in significant changes in regional climate, soil, biodiversity, hydrology and water resources, and profoundly impacting regional ecological processes [7,8,9,10]. In order to tackle the impacts of mining areas landscape ecosystem degradation on regional sustainable development in semi-arid steppe area, increasing attention has been paid to how to monitor, assess, and regulate the state and sources of risk, as well as the safety or sustainability degree of landscape ecological health (LEH)

Objectives

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion