Ecosystem Health Evaluation and Ecological Security Patterns Construction Based on VORSD and Circuit Theory: A Case Study in the Three Gorges Reservoir Region in Chongqing, China.

Abstract

Constructing ecological security patterns (ESPs) is an important approach to maintaining regional ecological security and achieving sustainable development. Most previous studies on ESPs mainly focused on the supply of ecosystem services (ESs) yet did not fully consider the ecosystem health and human demand for ESs, which lacked evaluation from the perspective of human nature. Therefore, based on ecosystem health and ESs demand, this paper constructed the "vigor, organization, resilience, ESs supply-demand ratio" (VORSD) ecosystem health evaluation system and combined it with circuit theory to develop a new and comprehensive ESPs identification framework. Taking the Three Gorges Reservoir Area in Chongqing section (TGRAC) as a case study, the results showed that the general ecosystem health of the TGRAC was not optimistic, and there was still a long way to go for ecological treatment and restoration. From the perspective of spatial distribution, there were significant differences in the ecosystem health between regions, and the eastern region was higher than the western region. The ecological sources area of the TGRAC was about 25,350.16 km2, mainly distributed in the northeast and southeast of forestland, grassland, and cultivated land. The total length of ecological corridors was 2291.41 km, linking the northeastern, southeastern, middle, and southwestern regions of the TGRAC. There were 82 ecological nodes and 30 ecological barriers, most of which were concentrated on the construction land and cultivated land in the southwest and should be regarded as priority areas for ecological conservation. The research results verify the regional suitability and rationality of integrating the VORSD model and circuit theory to construct ESPs, which can provide an important reference for regional ecological protection and land use pattern optimization.