Compilation and Practice
WEI Zi-qian, XU Zeng-rang, MAO Shi-ping
The delimitation of ecological space is an important basis for the scientific management of territorial space and the maintenance of regional ecological security. Since the beginning of the 21st century, China has undergone an unprecedented rapid urbanization process, and the territorial spatial pattern has changed dramatically. However, during this period, a series of disorderly processes of territorial spatial development have resulted in the squeezing of ecological space and many severe regional ecological problems, such as land desertification, biodiversity reduction, ecosystem degradation, which restricts the realization of the goal of sustainable development. The definition of ecological space is mainly put forward by domestic scholars in recent years, and the corresponding concepts in other countries are ecoregion, ecological land space, and green space etc., and the classification system of ecological space is also not unified. Taking the Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) as an example, we explored the classification system, spatial distribution, attribution of the patches, and human activities intensity of ecological space on provincial scale in the study. The results are as follows. (1) The classification system of ecological space can be composed by 3 hierarchal systems. According to various ecosystems and dominant functions, there are 4 land categories in the primary-class system, 13 sub-categories of land in the second-class system and 29 sub-categories of land in the third-class system. And according to the ecological governance intensity from the strictest regulation to the relatively relaxed regulation, ecological space can be divided into I-level, II-level and III-level areas. (2) Guided by the current spatial planning and governance system, the link between the classification system of ecological space and the existing land classification system such as the land cover and land use classification, ecosystem type was built; the spatial distribution of ecological space, and the attribution of the patches within the space was identified. Besides, the key ecosystem services functional area and the main ecological frangible area were also identified and included into the ecological space. The existing land classification system, the ecosystem services functional area and frangible ecosystem, and the various space can be integrated in GIS environment. The total ecological space of TAR is about 1054500 km2, accounting for 87.7% of the total area. (3) Finally, human activities within the ecological space in Tibet were simulated in order to control the human activities intensity of ecological space and to maintain the ecological security.