[Construction and Assessment of Ecological Security Pattern in Gansu Along the Yellow River Based on Zonation-MSPA Coupling Model].

To effectively realize the ecological protection and restoration of the national land space, exploring the construction of the ecological security pattern of the national land space and the identification of key areas for ecological protection and restoration and proposing targeted restoration strategies to maintain the national ecological security are important. In this study, based on the importance of ecosystem services and ecological sensitivity, the coupled Zonation-MSPA model is used to identify ecological sources, and the circuit theory is used to extract ecological corridors, ecological pinch points, and ecological barriers； to construct an ecological security pattern and evaluate the ecological security pattern by using the graph theoretic method； and to identify and determine the ecological protection and restoration key areas of the national land space in the study area. The study revealed that： ① There were 60 ecological source sites and 112 ecological corridors in Gansu along the Yellow River, including 43 key ecological corridors. ② The ecological security pattern of Gansu along the Yellow River was generally characterized by the spatial feature of "four verticals, four horizontals, and three zones," and the network circuits and connectivity were at a medium level. The key areas for ecological protection and restoration in Gansu along the Yellow River were identified as follows： 126 ecological pinch points, mainly distributed in the Longzhong area, with the current land mainly consisting of arable land and grassland and most of the current land around the ecological pinch points consisting of construction land. There were 475 ecological obstacle sites, including 106 primary obstacle sites and 369 secondary obstacle sites, and the current land was mainly cropland, grassland, and river. Combined with the spatial distribution characteristics of the key areas for ecological protection and restoration in the study area and the current land types to be restored, the restoration measures for each type of key areas for ecological protection and restoration are proposed, which will provide reference for the optimization of the ecological security pattern and ecological restoration in the Yellow River Basin.