Landscape Connectivity as a Tool in Green Space Evaluation and Optimization of the Haidan District, Beijing

The demand for urban construction has placed growing pressure on biodiversity conservation. In China, landscape fragmentation caused by rapid urbanization has resulted in an immense amount of damage to the ecological system. Taking the Haidian District of Beijing as the study area, this study distinguishes the vital patches and corridors for landscape connectivity maintenance through morphological spatial pattern analysis (MSPA), the probability of connectivity (PC), and the least-cost path analysis. Although we adopted and combined these methods from the existing research about landscape modeling, we went deeper into two parameters: the resistance value and the distance threshold. In order to get a species-specific result, we selected two focal species: the ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchius) and the raccoon dog (Nyctereutes procyonoides), whose biological characteristics and habitat types are assumed to represent most of the habitats in Beijing. The result shows the different habitats and corridors for two species. Then, the results of two simulated scenarios are overlaid to obtain the final landscape pattern. Based on this case study, we propose a paradigm of ecological network identification of multiple species, which may contribute to landscape modeling and green space planning.