Landscape ecological risk assessment and ecological security pattern construction in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous...

Exploring the landscape ecological risk and ecological protection and restoration strategies in the dry-hot valley region of the Jinsha River Basin is of great significance for promoting the high-quality development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. With Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture as the research area, we evaluated landscape ecological risk and determined its ecological background using the InVEST and Zonation models, and further constructed the ecological security pattern by integrating the ecological characteristics of dry-hot valley regions to guide the formulation of ecological restoration strategies, thereby ensuring regional ecological security. The results showed that there is a patchy and locally aggregated pattern of ecological risks , with high-risk patches being concentrated in dry-hot valley areas and urban expansion zones and low-risk areas being mainly found in mountainous forest regions. With an area threshold of 5 km², we identified 154 ecological sources, accounting for 19.5% of the total area of the prefecture, mainly distributed in Ailao Mountain, Baicao Ridge, and Wumeng Mountain with large forest area. We extracted a total of 241 ecological corridors with a combined length of 2779.49 km, which showed a distribution pattern of shorter corridors around the periphery and medium-to-longer corridors in the interior. There were 173 ecological pinch points with a total area of 57.87 km², and the area of the largest pinch point was 13.44 km². The number of ecological barriers was 101 with a total area of 172.14 km², mainly distributed in areas heavily affected by human activities such as railways and expressways. Based on ecological sources, combined with the connectivity direction of ecological corridors and the resistance surface, we constructed an ecological security pattern of "three zones, four belts, and multiple points", and proposed corresponding ecological restoration strategies. This study would provide theoretical support for ecological protection and sustainable development in Chuxiong Yi Autonomous Prefecture and offer reference value for ecological protection and restoration in dry-hot valley regions.