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Ecological security plays a crucial role in the sustainable development of urban agglomeration, where high population and economic density brings great pressure on eco-system. This paper selected six indicators to build an ecological security index (ESI), and constructed a system dynamics (SD) model to simulate and forecast its future scenarios. It aims at establishing the nexus among the socio-economic and ecological indicators, and identifying the key driving factors of ESI. Taking Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei urban agglomeration (BTH) as a case, this paper assessed the historical situation in 2000–2015 and forecasted the future scenarios in 2016–2030. The results show that, the ESI of BTH decreased from 0.665 in 2000 to 0.648 in 2015. It will decrease to 0.632 in 2030 if the existing development mode continues. Though it belonged to the higher security level all along, obvious disparities will exist in 13 cities in BTH according to the spatiotemporal variations of ESI and its six indicators. Low guarantee degree of eco-water use and fragile ecosystem will be the primary risks of BTH all along. As the existing development mode has considered the socio-economic benefits and ecological protection, it is rational to continue for the whole BTH. However, especially in the southeast cities, the ecological development mode should be strengthened. This paper provides a framework to assess the current conditions and forecast the future scenarios of ecological security for urban agglomerations. It also might help to explore the coupling mechanism between human and ecological system.
Wang et al. (Sat,) studied this question.