How to design an ecological restoration project in fragile inland basins: A case study in arid regions of China

Abstract

Ecological protection is the basis for sustainable development of inland river basins in arid areas with fragile ecological environments. The aim of our study is to diagnose the ecological problems and build the ecological security pattern (ESP) of the Aksu River basin (ARB) in Xinjiang which is located in northwest of China. The spatial measurement of ecosystem service value (ESV) was employed to identified ecological problems. Using cold/hot spot detection analysis and the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model, the ESP at three security levels were constructed. The results showed that the ESV of ARB showed an upwards trend from 1990 to 2018, the function of water conservation, waste treatment and soil formation and retention grew fastest. The ESV of ARB in 2018 ranged from 5390 yuan/hm 2 to 131,080 yuan/hm 2 . The high-value areas were mainly located in the oasis and the northern mountainous, the low-value areas were widely distributed in desert. The ecological source areas of high, medium and low safety levels were 1806.30 km 2 , 3416.80 km 2 and 4804.32 km 2 , respectively. Three kinds of ecological protection engineering models were proposed for the four types of ecological protection zones based on the ecological problem identification in ARB. To provide a decision-making basis for ecological environmental management and regional sustainable development in the ARB, the optimization patterns of points (ecological protection projects), lines (ecological corridors) and polygons (ecological source areas) were constructed. The results of this study can also serve as a reference for ecological environmental protection in other arid inland river basins.