Ecological Network Construction and Spatial Conflict Identification Around Taihu Lake Area in Suzhou City
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Graphical Abstract
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Abstract
Rapid urbanization led to serious habitat fragmentation, therefore, the construction of ecological network is of great significance to regional ecological security. Morphological spatial pattern analysis and minimum cumulative resistance model were applied to identify the ecological source, potential ecological corridor and ecological buffer zone based on the land use dataset and digital elevation model (DEM) in 2017, around Taihu Lake area. Then the urban construction land and the identified ecological network were spatially overlaid to explore the land use conflict. The area of the ecological network is 100 965.79 hm2, among which ecological source area, potential ecological corridor, and ecological buffer zone accounted for 35.72%, 5.82% and 58.46%, respectively. All the 16 ecological source areas are large-scale ecological land, including forest land, water bodies, and wetland. In terms of spatial distribution, the mountainous areas are mainly distributed in the west of the study area, and the water areas are mainly distributed in the east of the study area. However, the connectivity among the ecological source areas is weak and these ecological source areas are highly fragmented in the southeast. There are 105 potential ecological corridors, 12 of which are very important ones. The densities of the ecological corridors in the southeast are higher than that in the northwest, and the widths of the ecological corridors in the northwest are wider than that in the southeast. The area of ecological buffer zone is generally larger in the east than that in the west. From the main built-up area to the periphery of the city, the conflict between urban land and ecological network is gradually weakened, while the conflict between ancient city and ecological corridor is more striking. These conflicts are mainly resulted from the encroachment of ecological buffer zone by the urban fringe. Therefore, combining with urban renewal, multiple ecological protection measures should be carried out in the ancient city, for example, repairing the backbone water system and greening, linking the critical ecological corridors, regional coordinated governance in Chengnan residential district, restoring the green wedge in the southwest. This study is expected to provide technical support for ecological security and urban planning around Taihu Lake area.
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