Constructing a Water Ecological Security Pattern (WESP) is essential for mitigating water scarcity, yet existing methods are mostly based on static supply-demand assessments and fail to capture the spatial flow pathways of water resources between supply and demand areas. This results in WESPs lacking spatial connectivity and process integrity. To address these gaps, this study quantifies the supply and demand of water provision service and proposes a network model-based simulation approach for water provision service flows. The proposed method integrates the Least Cost Path (LCP) model with an Iterative Dynamic Allocation algorithm, enabling the joint consideration of landscape resistance and human demand in simulating the dynamic flow process of water provision service. The simulation results are used to identify key spatial elements for WESP construction in the Yellow River Delta (YRD), thereby providing a basis for establishing a WESP with dynamic connectivity. Analysis across three representative years indicates a persistent water deficit in the YRD. A growing spatial mismatch was observed, driven by declining supply in the north and surging demand in the south. The simulated flow network demonstrates a distinct "periphery-to-center" convergence, connecting coastal supply nodes to inland demand centers through 62 key flow pathways. Based on these dynamics, we proposed a WESP comprising "five zones, two corridors, three belts, and three cores". According to its structural characteristics, these spatial elements are further classified into four management zones, for which differentiated spatial regulation strategies are developed. These findings offer a novel, flow-based perspective for resolving supply-demand imbalances and enhancing regional water security.
Guan et al. (Sat,) studied this question.