Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2020, Vol. 75 ›› Issue (11): 2459-2474.doi: 10.11821/dlxb202011014

• Ecological Civilization and Sustainable Development • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Construction of an ecological security network for waterfront cities based on MCR model and DO index: A case study of Jiujiang city

DAI Lu1(), LIU Yaobin1(), HUANG Kaizhong2   

  1. 1. School of Economics and Management, Nanchang University, Nanchang 330031, China
    2. Jiujiang Hydrology Bureau, Jiujiang 332000, Jiangxi, China
  • Received:2019-09-06 Revised:2020-07-02 Online:2020-11-25 Published:2021-01-25
  • Contact: LIU Yaobin E-mail:dailu.chn@outlook.com;liuyaobin2003@163.com
  • Supported by:
    National Natural Science Foundation of China(41871155)

Abstract:

It is of vital importance to construct an ecological security network that considers both the ecological protection and the economic growth to ensure the sustainable development in waterfront cities. Based on the ecological and industrial data of Jiujiang city, we develop a comprehensive ecological security evaluation framework using the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model and the Duranton and Overman (DO) index. Specifically, the MCR is applied to examine the ecological landscape pattern while the DO index is introduced to analyze the degree of industrial agglomeration in continuous large areas and economic production zones. Subsequently, the eco-economic strategic nodes and green infrastructure belts are identified based on spatial conflicts between the ecological landscape patterns and economic production zones. The results demonstrate that: (1) Jiujiang city contains 29 important ecological sources with a total area of 7323 km2. The areas with high-value of ecological security resistance account for 39.69%, which are distributed in the contiguous areas in the central and eastern parts of the city. In contrast, the low-value areas are on the city's periphery where there were fewer connected transition areas, which exhibit a spatially polarized "center-periphery" ecological landscape pattern. (2) The economic production zone is close to water sources, which presents spatial patterns of small-scale agglomeration and large-scale dispersion. The average length and number of agglomeration intervals are decreasing in heavily polluted, lightly polluted, and moderately polluted industries. (3) By analyzing the ecological sources, the resistance surface as well as the economic production zone, we determined ecological corridors with a length of 685.57 km and 25 eco-economic strategic nodes. As such, 18 important green infrastructure belts with a total length of 424.53 km and 26 regular green infrastructure belts with a total length of 662.46 km are designed to increase connectivity and maintain ecological processes. All of these elements constitute a "honeycomb" pattern of the ecological security network in Jiujiang city. This study expands the agglomeration economy perspective of the traditional ecological security network construction framework, and explores the data fusion of different scales. The study could contribute to scientific references for environmental management and regional sustainable development.

Key words: ecological security network, minimum cumulative resistance model, Duranton and Overman index, Jiujiang city