Construction of Landscape Heritage Corridors in Ethnic Minority Villages Based on LCA-MSPA-MCR Framework: A Case Study of the Nanling Ethnic Corridor Region in China

To address the challenges of the loss of ethnic cultural carriers and the spatial fragmentation of landscape management due to rural population shrinkage, constructing heritage corridors has emerged as a crucial strategy for integrating fragmented resources, enhancing cultural landscape connectivity, and improving functional resilience. Using the Nanling Ethnic Corridor in China as a case study, this research proposes an integrated method combining Landscape Character Assessment (LCA), Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA), and the Minimum Cumulative Resistance (MCR) model, aiming to construct a landscape heritage corridor network for ethnic villages. Firstly, LCA was employed to identify 12 categories of landscape characters, followed by a multi-dimensional value evaluation to determine high-value landscape areas. Subsequently, MSPA was used to extract core landscape patches, and the importance of these patches was assessed by combining connectivity indices (dIIC, dPC), resulting in the identification of 48 key landscape source areas. Finally, the MCR model was applied to generate potential corridors, and a heritage corridor network was formed through the optimization of topological nodes. The results indicate that (1) the heritage network consists of 48 source areas and 151 corridors, forming a structure with “two vertical and one horizontal” main axes and a circular branch network; (2) spatial distribution of source areas and corridors exhibits aggregation in the central and western regions and sparsity in the southeast, closely aligning with the distribution of ethnic villages and high-value landscape areas; (3) the optimized corridor network significantly improves the connection efficiency and resilience of cultural nodes. This study provides a scientific foundation for the systematic conservation, spatial optimization, and sustainable development of cultural heritage in ethnic regions experiencing population shrinkage.