Linking regional sustainable development goals with ecosystem services to identify ecological security patterns

Ecological security patterns (ESPs) have become an important spatial approach to alleviate the contradiction between ecological protection and economic development. The identification of ecological sources is the primary part of studying ESPs, and methods based on ecosystem services (ESs) have been widely used. However, the current method of simply overlaying ESs for ecological source identification has difficulty supporting different regional decision-making needs of the target. Taking the West Liaohe River basin in China as an example, this study aims at developing four regional sustainable development goals (RSDGs) of carbon neutrality, water security, soil security, and biodiversity protection. Six ESs, including net primary production (NPP), water retention (WR), water purification (WP), soil conservation (SC), soil loss by wind (SL), and habitat quality (HQ), in the West Liaohe River basin from 2010 to 2020 were evaluated. Based on the current mainstream research paradigm of 'source identification-resistance surface construction-corridor extraction-safety pattern identification', combined RSDGs and ESs, the minimum cumulative resistance (MCR) model was used to identify the West Liaohe River basin development goals. The pattern of ecological security was discussed, and the identification, optimization, and construction plan of the regional comprehensive ESP were discussed in combination with the actual situation of the region. The study found that simply overlaying ESs to identify ecological sources leads to the neglect of some areas that provide key ESs, and it is difficult to directly support regional ecological protection decisions under different objectives, while a multiobjective-oriented comprehensive ecological security pattern helps to promote ESs and their relationships. The research results will help to improve the understanding of the ESP and provide a basis for the ecological protection and restoration of the basin and the optimization of the spatial structure to promote the sustainable development of the 'social-economic-ecological' complex system in the West Liaohe River basin.