Integrating Ecosystem Function and Structure to Assess Landscape Ecological Risk in Traditional Village Clustering Areas

Land use in traditional village clustering areas often exhibits slight dynamic changes; however, significant hidden ecological hazards may be present in local settlements. There is still a lack of dynamic ecological risk assessments for the corresponding classification-based prevention strategies and landscape ecosystem attributes’ enhancement. Based on the land-use changes, this study integrated the ecosystem structure and function to explore the characteristics of the landscape ecological risk in traditional village clustering areas. The clustering area of 24 national traditional villages in Songyang County of Lishui City in Zhejiang Province, China, served as the study region to evaluate and analyze the changes in the landscape ecological risk from 2010 to 2019. The results showed that the land-use transitions were subtle but dominated by changes from forest cultivated land, posing high risk and medium—high risk increased slowly in size. Additionally, significantly increased risks were located mainly in the boundary area of the five villages. Moreover, 22 settlements were found in the sensitive area with increased risks less than 600 m away. This assessment will provide a basis for traditional villages’ risk prevention and ecosystem protection.