Trade-offs of landscape connectivity between regional and interregional ecological security patterns in a junction area of Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

Abstract

Highly urbanized areas are confronted with insufficient space for regional ecological conservation. Therefore, the implementation of ecological conservation has shifted from region to inter-region in China. However, the effectiveness of interregional ecological conservation remains unknown. Taking Tongzhou District and the Three Northern Counties of Hebei Province (TZ&TNC) for example, the key issue was explored based on ecological security pattern (ESP) construction and an index of landscape connectivity. The results showed that 93 (73) ecological corridors connected 63 (45) ecological sources from the regional (interregional) perspective. The trade-offs in landscape connectivity between the two perspectives were obvious, and the interregional ESP enhanced the landscape connectivity of the whole study area with significantly increasing in Tongzhou and Sanhe, but decreasing in Xianghe. However, after removing 70% and 56% of the ecological sources in Tongzhou and Sanhe respectively, the importance of landscape connectivity reversed from interregional perspective to regional perspective, indicating that the effectiveness of interregional ecological conservation varied with number proportion of protected patches. This study explored the trade-offs of landscape connectivity between regional and interregional ESPs, highlighting the priority of interregional ecological conservation.