ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Ecol. Evol.
Sec. Biogeography and Macroecology
This article is part of the Research TopicRiver-Reservoir System Ecological ProcessView all articles
Study on the identification of protection priority areas in Huaihe River Basin based on ecosystem services
Provisionally accepted
- Xinyang Normal University, Xinyang, China
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Based on the land use data of Huaihe River Basin from 1990 to 2023, InVEST model, Local Moran's I analysis, Spearman correlation coefficient and Marxan model were used to quantify the four ecosystem service functions of habitat quality, carbon storage, water yield and soil conservation, clarify their trade-off / synergy relationship and identify priority areas for protection, so as to provide theoretical support for ecological environment protection and sustainable development of the basin. The results showed that: (1) From 1990 to 2023, the construction land and water in the study area increased by 5.1% and 0.5% respectively, and the cropland, forest, grassland and unused land decreased by 4.8%, 3.2%, 1.5% and 76.1% respectively. (2) Habitat quality, water yield and soil conservation showed a significant downward trend, which were 12.5%, 23.2% and 19.0%, respectively, showing a spatial distribution pattern of high in the south and low in the north. (3) The ecosystem services in the Huaihe River Basin form a high-high aggregation in the mountainous and hilly areas, and the aggregation in the plain areas is not significant, which generally reflects the synergy. (4) The core areas obtained under different protection target allocations of priority protection areas are basically similar, reflecting stability and continuity. Therefore, it is necessary to protect the ecological environment according to local conditions, and finally achieve the goal of jointly improving ecosystem services and green development.
Keywords: ecosystem services, priority protected areas, trade-off synergy relationship, HuaiheRiver Basin, InVEST model
Received: 29 Oct 2025; Accepted: 24 Nov 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yan, He, Yan, Yang and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Jun Yan
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