Pathways for ecological restoration of territorial space based on ecosystem integrity: A case study of approach to protecting and restoring mountains, rivers, forests, farmlands, lakes, and grasslands in Beijing, China

Abstract

One of the most important issues to global sustainable development is coordinating the relationship between social-economic development and ecological-environmental protection. The United Nations has declared 2021–2030 as the “Decade on Ecological Restoration”, which aims to raise public awareness of the importance of ecosystem restoration. As the material carrier of human activities and the embodiment of ecological processes, the ecological restoration activities for land are not only the process and function towards adjusting ecological space, but also important means to regulate the relationship between ecological space and production space, living space. Despite rich theoretical and practical experience, ecological restoration around megacities is still weak. The complex relationship between urban populations, land and the intense human activities lead to the rapid and strong land use changes, which form deviation from the slow process of natural ecosystem recovery. In this study, we conducted during the formulation of the Beijing landscape engineering implementation plan, extracted the ecological space recovery path by considering various factors such as diversity, river basin ecological restoration measures, and both urban and rural natural elements. We determined the main ecological problems, analyzed the ecological background and basin characteristics, and established the ecological protection targets for the river basin. We illustrated the process of establishing the framework and pathway for the ecological restoration of ecosystem integrity.