Zoning of Ecological Restoration in the Qilian Mountain Area, China

Abstract

Ecosystem restoration has been widely concerned with the damage and degradation of ecosystems worldwide. Scientific and reasonable formulations of ecological restoration zoning is the basis for the formulation of an ecological restoration plan. In this study, a restoration zoning index system was proposed to comprehensively consider the ecological problems of ecosystems. The linear weighted function method was used to construct the ecological restoration index (ERI) as an important index of zoning. The research showed that: (1) the ecological restoration zones of the Qilian Mountains can be divided into eight basins, namely the headwaters of the Datong River Basin, the Danghe-Dahaerteng River Basin, the northern confluence area of the Qinghai Lake, the upper Shule River to middle Heihe River, the Oasis Agricultural Area in the northern foothills of the Qilian Mountain, the Huangshui Basin Valley, Aksay (corridor region of the western Hexi Basin), and the northeastern Tsaidam Basin; (2) the restoration index of the eight ecological restoration zones of the Qilian Mountains was between 0.34–0.8, with an average of 0.61 (the smaller the index, the more prominent the comprehensive ecological problem representing the regional mountains, rivers, forests, cultivated lands, lakes, and grasslands, and thus the greater the need to implement comprehensive ecological protection and restoration projects); and (3) the ecological problems of different ecological zones are frequently numerous, and often show the phenomenon of multiple overlapping ecological problems in the same zone.

Analysis of the effect of landscape component classification on landscape diversity index

“…Three landscape components were identified in the three land use types at a amplitude of 2 km, which had the smallest LDI value (0.3027), and 37 landscape components were identified in the grade III land type at a amplitude of 9 km, which had the largest LDI value (2.0947). This indicates that the number of captured landscape components changes during the amplitude increase, and the number of landscape components is the highest when the amplitude increases to a certain degree, corresponding to a relatively large LDI value, which is similar to the results of previous studies (table 6) (Xu et al 2004, Xu et al 2007, Bi and Gao 2012, Huang et al 2018, Kong et al 2018, Zhang and Liu 2019, Hu et al 2020, Yang and Liu 2021. However, there are special cases, when we should take into account the distribution status of landscape components.…”

Response of lake dynamics to climate change in the Qilian Mountains from 1990 to 2020

“…The Qilian Mountains area (35.8°~40.0°N; 93.4°~103.4°E) is located in the northeast of Qinghai Province and the west of Gansu Province (Liu et al 2021) (Fig. 1).…”

Soil fungal communities varied across aspects of restored grassland in former mining areas of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

“…It serves as an essential ecological security barrier and genetic gene pool for species in northwest China, which makes it a priority area for biodiversity conservation and water conservation [ 19 ]. However, open-pit mining activities in Muli area in recent years have caused many coal gangue mountains around mining sites, causing vegetation destruction and soil erosion, which seriously threatened regional ecological and environmental security [ 20 , 21 ]. A grassland restoration project initiated in 2013 with reconstituted soil and replanted grass seeds [ 20 ].…”