Ecological conservation redline zoning at the regional scale: A case study of northwest China

Ecological conservation redline zoning is a new research field that has arisen due to ecological and environmental issues. Redline zoning can effectively protect the structure and function of the ecosystem and help maintain regional ecological security. The “from bottom to top” quantitative merging concept and the “from top to bottom” idea, along with spatial systems; the comprehensive consideration of ecological vulnerability, ecosystem service function, ecological sensitivity and regional ecological risk in northwest China; and the use of the multidimensional clustering method, were used to establish a “multi-scale, multi-factor” comprehensive ecological conservation redline zoning system. The system is based on two zoning levels: “ecological vulnerability – first level zoning, and ecosystem status – second level zoning”. In this study, ecological conservation redline zoning in ecologically fragile areas across northwest China was carried out using this system. The basic results of this research are as follows: 1) According to ecological vulnerability, the northwest region can be divided into six first-level zones. The area of each district accounts for 24.5%, 45.3%, 6.9%, 15.8%, 0.3%, and 7.2% of the total area of northwest China, respectively; and 2) based on the constraints of the first-level zoning, northwest China can be further divided into 50 second-level zones according to their ecosystem status as determined by ecosystem service function, ecological sensitivity, and regional ecological risk. These results not only provide a theoretical basis and reference for land space management, planning, and policy-making, but also maintain ecological security and promote the construction of an ecological civilization in northwest China.