Abstract
Rapid urbanization and drastic land-use change have led to landscape fragmentation and ecological environment deterioration in the regions along the Grand Canal. Building an ecological network is an important means to improve the connectivity of habitat patches and carry out ecological protection and restoration of territorial space, which is of great significance to ensure regional biodiversity and ecological security. In this article, we took the Huaiyang Section of the Grand Canal (Huaiyang Canal) as the study area, used the ecosystem service assessment model, morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA), and the landscape connectivity evaluation method to identify ecological sources, then used the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model and the gravity model to extract and grade ecological corridors. Based on these, the ecological network was constructed by combining the identification method of ecological nodes and ecological breakpoints. The aim of this was to provide a reference for the ecological space optimization of Huaiyang Canal and even the entire Grand Canal, the formulation of an ecological protection plan, and the implementation of territorial space ecological restoration. The results showed that the spatial distribution of the water conservation service, soil conservation service, carbon sequestration service, and biodiversity conservation service were significantly different, and the level of ecosystem services showed a trend of continuous degradation from 1990 to 2018. There were 12 ecological source patches comprehensively identified by multiple methods, with a total area of 2007.06 km2. In terms of spatial distribution, large ecological source patches were mainly distributed in the central and western areas adjacent to the Grand Canal, while small ecological source patches were scattered in the eastern and southern border regions of the study area. The total length of ecological corridors was 373.84 km, of which the number of the primary ecological corridor, secondary ecological corridor, and tertiary ecological corridor were 9, 7, and 7, respectively, and the suitable width of the ecological corridor was 200–400 m. After optimization, the proposed ecological network was composed of 3 key ecological source patches, 9 important ecological source patches, 23 terrestrial corridors, 10 aquatic corridors, and 18 ecological nodes. Twenty-nine ecological breakpoints were key areas requiring ecological restoration. The overlap rate of the integrated ecosystem service change area and land-use change area was 99%, indicating that land-use change has a significant impact on regional ecosystem services. This study is of great significance for carrying out the ecological protection and restoration of the Huaiyang Canal and adjusting local land-use policies. It also provides a typical case demonstration for identifying an ecological network and formulating ecological restoration planning for other sections of the Grand Canal and cities along the canal.
Highlights
The Grand Canal is the longest artificial canal in the world and is located in the plain area of eastern China
We introduced a scientific conjecture, that is, in the process of rapid urbanization, dramatic land-use change has a significant impact on regional ecosystem services, and the ecological network is an effective tool to mitigate land-use change and achieve regional ecological protection
The high-value areas were highly overlapped with woodland and water areas, while the low-value areas were distributed in clumps and spots throughout the study area and highly overlapped with construction land
Summary
Canal has been an important transportation channel in China, effectively strengthening economic and cultural exchanges between the north and south of China and playing a positive role in promoting the economic prosperity and development of the regions along the canal [2]. Even it still plays an important role in cargo transportation, agricultural irrigation, flood discharge, regional allocation of water resources, and absorption of urban and industrial wastewater [3].
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