ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Environ. Sci.
Sec. Land Use Dynamics
Delineation of Rural Ecological Pattern and Evaluation of Network Priority from the Perspective of Multi-functional Coupling: A Case Study of the Yangtze River in Anhui Province
Provisionally accepted
- 1Anhui University, Hefei, China
- 2City University of Macau, Taipa, Macao, SAR China
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In response to the environmental challenges posed by rapid population growth and socio-economic development, this study focuses on the Anhui section of the Yangtze River. It integrates Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA), the delta of Probability of Connectivity (dPC), and the coupling coordination degree of Production-Living-Ecological Space (PLES) to identify key ecological sources. The Minimum Cumulative Resistance (MCR) model and Circuit Theory were employed to construct and optimize ecological corridors and critical nodes, while Space Syntax theory was applied to evaluate and prioritize corridor hierarchies. The results indicate: (1) PLES analysis identified four types of coupling patches, with highly coupled areas accounting for 25.51% of the total region; (2) a total of 57 ecological sources were selected, covering 14,944.27 km², characterized by a "periphery-dense, center-sparse" spatial distribution; 133 ecological corridors were delineated, with a combined length of 1,652.49 km, many of which intersect riverine zones, thereby supporting the integrated development of blue-green infrastructure; (3) Space Syntax analysis categorized the corridors into seven hierarchical levels and proposed targeted measures for constructing an ecological network. This study provides a replicable framework for developing and optimizing ecological security patterns in regions with similar landscape and functional characteristics.
Keywords: Anhui section of the Yangtze River Basin, circuit theory, Multifunctional coupling, Rural ecological patterns, space syntax
Received: 08 Aug 2025; Accepted: 21 Jan 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Fu, Su and Huang. 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: Yuanyuan Su
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