Optimizing Landscape Structure of Hybrid Land Use in Ecological Corridors Based on Comprehensive Benefit Index in Metropolitan Area

Abstract

As an inherent part of the landscape ecological network (LEN), the ecological corridor is the bridge between ecological sources and also the key to ensuring urban ecological security. Existing studies on ecological corridors mostly stay in the large scale of landscape patterns and lack guidance for corridor structure design or optimization at the land use level. To provide a reference for the internal landscape structure adjustment of the ecological corridor composed of hybrid land use in the rapidly urbanized areas, first, we constructed the “Comprehensive benefit index of ecological corridors I” by using the three indexes of “Ecological benefit enhancement potential”, “Economic input cost” and “Social coordination cost”. Second, with the goal of maximizing the comprehensive benefits of the three aspects of ecological corridor construction, we established a functional relationship between the converted agricultural land area A, constructed land area C, and index I to determine the optimal proportion of agricultural lands and constructed lands converted into ecological lands within the planning scope of the ecological corridors. The results show that (1) according to the conversion ratio, the ecological corridors in the study area can be divided into three degrees of conversion rate: low, moderate, and high. (2) Among the 66 ecological corridors, the agricultural lands in 26 ecological corridors and the constructed lands in 35 ecological corridors need to be converted into ecological land at a high ratio to ensure the comprehensive benefits of the corresponding corridors. We also put forward suggestions for landscape structure adjustment and optimization for ecological corridors with different conversion degrees. This method can help balance the benefits of different stakeholders in the city and implement the results of ecological corridor planning on a large spatial and temporal scale at the land use level.