An Assessment Of Ecological Vulnerability In Shenmu City

As social and economic development progresses,the contradictions between human activities and the ecological environment are increasingly prominent,leading to fragility in ecosystems and affecting the achievement of sustainable development goals.Shenmu,as an important national energy,chemical,and mineral base,has experienced rapid development in the exploitation of regional coal resources and the construction of energy bases in recent years.The intensity of human land use has increased,exacerbating problems such as land desertification and soil erosion,and worsening the ecological environment.This has made the fragile ecological environment in the region even more complex.This article takes Shenmu City as the research area,selects topographic and geomorphologic data,meteorological data,vegetation data,land use and soil data,and social and economic statistics data to construct an ecological fragility assessment system based on the Ecological sensitivity-Ecological resilience-Ecological pressure(SRP)model framework.Using principal component analysis and Geographic Information System(GIS),the ecological fragility,spatiotemporal evolution characteristics,and spatial autocorrelation of Shenmu City in 2010,2015,and 2020 were studied.The relationship between ecological protection red lines,mine distribution,water system distribution,and ecological fragility in the region was analyzed.Based on this,the main driving factors of fragility were explored,and the ecological fragility and causes of different land use types were analyzed.Finally,corresponding restoration measures were proposed for different fragile areas,with the aim of providing a reasonable reference basis for ecological restoration of Shenmu’s national land space and enriching the study of ecological fragility in the county’s urban areas.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)According to the evaluation results of ecological fragility in different periods of Shenmu City,the spatial distribution generally showed a trend of being higher in the southeast and lower in the northwest.Specifically,in 2010,the average ecological fragility index was0.39,mainly consisting of mild fragility(27.1%),severe fragility(21.7%),and extremely severe fragility(19%).In 2015,the average ecological fragility index was 0.33,with slight fragility(26.3%),mild fragility(21.6%),and extremely severe fragility(19.9%)being the main evaluation results.By 2020,the average ecological fragility index was 0.29,with slight fragility(37.7%)being the main evaluation result,while the proportions of severe fragility(15.4%)and extremely severe fragility(15.1%)remained relatively high.(2)From the perspective of temporal and spatial evolution,the ecological vulnerability level area of Shenmu City changed mainly from mild and severe vulnerability to mild and extreme vulnerability from 2010 to 2015,and from mild,severe,and extreme vulnerability to mild vulnerability from 2015 to 2020.Overall,the ecological vulnerability of the 20 districts and towns in Shenmu City showed a downward trend,but there are still several areas with high ecological vulnerability index,such as Ma Town(0.4418),Hejiachuan Town(0.4197),Wan Town(0.4181),Huashiyai Town(0.4158)and Shashan Town(0.4125).In particular,Ma Town has a very high proportion(91.2%)of extreme vulnerability area to Ma Town’s total area,indicating a very high degree of vulnerability.(3)By analyzing the spatial correlation of ecological vulnerability in Shenmu City,it was found that there is a clear positive spatial correlation on the space distribution,with the northwest being significantly low-low aggregation and the southeast being significantly highhigh aggregation.By overlaying the ecological vulnerability and ecological protection red line analysis,it is known that the ecological vulnerability in the ecological protection red line area is relatively high.By overlaying the ecological vulnerability and the distribution of mining areas in Shenmu City,it is known that the ecological vulnerability index in areas where mining areas are located in the northwest of Shenmu City is higher than in non-mining areas.By overlaying the ecological vulnerability and water system distribution analysis,it is known that the ecological vulnerability in the downstream areas of Toupie River and Kuye River is severe and should be given priority protection and management.(4)After exploring the driving factors of ecological vulnerability in Shenmu City,it was found that average annual precipitation,average annual temperature,land use type,slope,NDVI,population density,and per capita GDP are the main driving factors.Analyzing the vulnerability and causes of ecological vulnerability in different land use types,it was found that there is a trend of transferring vulnerability from severe to mild in different land use types,but farmland,forestland,grassland are still at a high level of severe and extremely severe vulnerability.Finally,corresponding restoration measures are proposed based on the causes of ecological vulnerability in different vulnerable areas.