Variability in Regional Ecological Vulnerability: A Case Study of Sichuan Province, China

Yimeng Liu; Saini Yang; Chuanliang Han; Wei Ni; Yuyao Zhu

doi:10.1007/s13753-020-00295-6

Volume 11 Issue 6

Dec. 2021

Turn off MathJax

Article Contents

Article Navigation > International Journal of Disaster Risk Science > 2020 > 11(6): 696-708

Yimeng Liu, Saini Yang, Chuanliang Han, Wei Ni, Yuyao Zhu. Variability in Regional Ecological Vulnerability: A Case Study of Sichuan Province, China[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2020, 11(6): 696-708. doi: 10.1007/s13753-020-00295-6

Citation:

Yimeng Liu, Saini Yang, Chuanliang Han, Wei Ni, Yuyao Zhu. Variability in Regional Ecological Vulnerability: A Case Study of Sichuan Province, China[J]. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science, 2020, 11(6): 696-708. doi: 10.1007/s13753-020-00295-6

Citation:

PDF

Variability in Regional Ecological Vulnerability: A Case Study of Sichuan Province, China

doi: 10.1007/s13753-020-00295-6

Yimeng Liu^1,2,3,
Saini Yang^{1,2,3
,
,},
Chuanliang Han⁴,
Wei Ni^1,2,3,
Yuyao Zhu^1,2,3

1 Key Laboratory of Environmental Change and Natural Disaster, Ministry of Education, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
2 State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
3 Academy of Disaster Reduction and Emergency Management, Ministry of Emergency Management and Ministry of Education, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;
4 State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China

Funds:

This study is sponsored by the National Key Research Program of China (2016YFA0602403), the National Science Foundation (41621061), and the International Center for Collaborative Research on Disaster Risk Reduction (ICCR-DRR).

Available Online: 2021-12-25
Publish Date: 2021-12-25

Abstract

Abstract

Rapid urbanization and natural hazards are posing threats to local ecological processes and ecosystem services worldwide. Using land use, socioeconomic, and natural hazards data, we conducted an assessment of the ecological vulnerability of prefectures in Sichuan Province for the years 2005, 2010, and 2015 to capture variations in its capacity to modulate in response to disturbances and to explore potential factors driving these variations. We selected five landscape metrics and two topological indicators for the proposed ecological vulnerability index (EVI), and constructed the EVI using a principal component analysis-based entropy method. A series of correlation analyses were subsequently performed to identify the factors driving variations in ecological vulnerability. The results show that: (1) for each of the study years, prefectures with high ecological vulnerability were located mainly in southern and eastern Sichuan, whereas prefectures in central and western Sichuan were of relatively low ecological vulnerability; (2) Sichuan's ecological vulnerability increased significantly (p = 0.011) during 2005–2010; (3) anthropogenic activities were the main factors driving variations in ecological vulnerability. These findings provide a scientific basis for implementing ecological protection and restoration in Sichuan as well as guidelines for achieving integrated disaster risk reduction.
- Anthropogenic activities,
- Ecological vulnerability,
- Natural hazards,
- PCA-based entropy method,
- Rank correlation

FullText(HTML)

References(72)

References

Aksha, S.K., L. Juran, L.M. Resler, and Y. Zhang. 2019. An analysis of social vulnerability to natural hazards in Nepal using a modified social vulnerability index. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 10(1): 103–116.

Armaş, I., D. Toma-Danila, R. Ionescu, and A. Gavriş. 2017. Vulnerability to earthquake hazard: Bucharest case study, Romania. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 8(2): 182–195.

Aswani, S., and M. Lauer. 2014. Indigenous people’s detection of rapid ecological change. Conservation Biology 28(3): 820–828.

Babí Almenar, J., A. Bolowich, T. Elliot, D. Geneletti, G. Sonnemann, and B. Rugani. 2019. Assessing habitat loss, fragmentation and ecological connectivity in Luxembourg to support spatial planning. Landscape and Urban Planning 189: 335–351.

Beroya-Eitner, M.A. 2016. Ecological vulnerability indicators. Ecological Indicators 60: 329–334.

Cao, M.T., D. Xu, F. Xie, E. Liu, and S. Liu. 2016. The influence factors analysis of households’ poverty vulnerability in southwest ethnic areas of China based on the hierarchical linear model: A case study of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture. Applied Geography 66: 144–152.

Chen, L.M. 2017. Research on the coupling development between population and land urbanization in Sichuan Province. Journal of Chengdu Normal University 33(9): 58–63 (in Chinese).

Chen, P.Y., and A. Hero. 2013. Node removal vulnerability of the largest component of a network. In 2013 IEEE Global Conference on Signal and Information Processing, 587–590.

Chen, W.F., S.L. Cutter, C.T. Emrich, and P.J. Shi. 2013. Measuring social vulnerability to natural hazards in the Yangtze River Delta region, China. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 4(4): 169–181.

Cinner, J.E., C. Huchery, E.S. Darling, A.T. Humphries, N.A.J. Graham, C.C. Hicks, N. Marshall, and T.R. McClanahan. 2013. Evaluating social and ecological vulnerability of coral reef fisheries to climate change. PLoS ONE 8(9): Article e74321.

De Lange, H.J., J. Lahr, J.J.C. Van Der Pol, Y. Wessels, and J.H. Faber. 2009. Ecological vulnerability in wildlife: An expert judgment and multicriteria analysis tool using ecological traits to assess relative impact of pollutants. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 28(10): 2233–2240.

De Lange, H.J., S. Sala, M. Vighi, and J.H. Faber. 2010. Ecological vulnerability in risk assessment—A review and perspectives. Science of the Total Environment 408(18): 3871–3879.

Department of Land Resources of Sichuan. 2010. Sichuan geological environment bulletin. Chengdu, China: Department of Land Resources of Sichuan.

Department of Natural Resources of Sichuan Province. 2015. Sichuan land and resources bulletin. Chengdu, China: Department of Natural Resources of Sichuan Province.

Ding, Q., X. Shi, D.F. Zhuang, and Y. Wang. 2018. Temporal and spatial distributions of ecological vulnerability under the influence of natural and anthropogenic factors in an eco-province under construction in China. Sustainability 10(9): Article 3087.

Disaster Relief Office of People’s Government of Sichuan. 2005. Sichuan disaster relief yearbook. Chengdu, China: Disaster Relief Office of People’s Government of Sichuan.

Du, Y.P., Y. Zhang, X.G. Zhao, and X.H. Wang. 2014. Risk evaluation of bogie system based on extension theory and entropy weight method. Computational Intelligence and Neuroscience 2014: Article 195752.

Ehrhardt-Martinez, K. 1998. Social determinants of deforestation in developing countries: A cross-national study. Social Forces 77(2): 567–586.

Ellison, D., M.N. Futter, and K. Bishop. 2012. On the forest cover-water yield debate: From demand- to supply-side thinking. Global Change Biology 18(3): 806–820.

Estrada, E., D.J. Higham, and N. Hatano. 2009. Communicability betweenness in complex networks. Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications 388(5): 764–774.

Fang, Y. 2019. The current situation of land use in Sichuan forestry nature reserves. Journal of Sichuan Forestry Science and Technology 40(2): 80–83 (in Chinese).

Forman, R.T.T. 1995. Some general principles of landscape and regional ecology. Landscape Ecology 10(3): 133–142.

Grubesic, T.H., T.C. Matisziw, A.T. Murray, and D. Snediker. 2008. Comparative approaches for assessing network vulnerability. International Regional Science Review 31(1): 88–112.

Guo, Y. 2012. Urban resilience in post-disaster reconstruction: Towards a resilient development in Sichuan, China. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 3(1): 45–55.

Hawbaker, T.J., V.C. Radeloff, M.K. Clayton, R.B. Hammer, and C.E. Gonzalez-Abraham. 2006. Road development, housing growth, and landscape fragmentation in northern Wisconsin: 1937–1999. Ecological Applications 16(3): 1222–1237.

He, H.S., B.E. DeZonia, and D.J. Mladenoff. 2000. An aggregation index (AI) to quantify spatial patterns of landscapes. Landscape Ecology 15(7): 591–601.

Hong, W.Y., R.R. Jiang, C.Y. Yang, F.F. Zhang, M. Su, and Q. Liao. 2016. Establishing an ecological vulnerability assessment indicator system for spatial recognition and management of ecologically vulnerable areas in highly urbanized regions: A case study of Shenzhen, China. Ecological Indicators 69: 540–547.

Hou, K., X.X. Li, and J. Zhang. 2015. GIS analysis of changes in ecological vulnerability using a SPCA model in the Loess Plateau of Northern Shaanxi, China. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 12(4): 4292–4305.

Hu, F.Y., C.H. Yeung, S.N. Yang, W.P. Wang, and A. Zeng. 2016. Recovery of infrastructure networks after localised attacks. Scientific Reports 6: Article 24522.

Ippolito, A., S. Sala, J.H. Faber, and M. Vighi. 2010. Ecological vulnerability analysis: A river basin case study. Science of the Total Environment 408(18): 3880–3890.

Jiang, M., W. Gao, X.W. Chen, X.F. Zhang, and W.X. Wei. 2008. Analysis of ecological vulnerability based on landscape pattern and ecological sensitivity: A case of Duerbete County. Proceedings of SPIE—The International Society for Optical Engineering 7083: Article 708315-11 (in Chinese).

Jiang, P.H., R.F. Zhao, H.L. Zhao, L.P. Lu, and Z.L. Xie. 2013. Relationships of wetland landscape fragmentation with climate change in middle reaches of Heihe River, China. Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology 24(6): 1661–1668 (in Chinese).

Kong, F.H., H.W. Yin, N. Nakagoshi, and Y.G. Zong. 2010. Urban green space network development for biodiversity conservation: Identification based on graph theory and gravity modeling. Landscape and Urban Planning 95(1–2): 16–27.

Kumar, R., G. Bala, N.H. Ravindranath, S. Upgupta, J. Sharma, and R.K. Chaturvedi. 2015. Assessment of inherent vulnerability of forests at landscape level: A case study from Western Ghats in India. Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change 22(1): 29–44.

Kupfer, J.A. 2012. Landscape ecology and biogeography: Rethinking landscape metrics in a post-FRAGSTATS landscape. Progress in Physical Geography 36(3): 400–420.

Lang, C., M.T. Gao, G.C. Wu, and X.Y. Wu. 2019. The concentration of population and GDP in high earthquake risk regions in China: Temporal-spatial distributions and regional comparisons from 2000 to 2010. Pure and Applied Geophysics 176(10): 4161–4175.

Lee, J.A., J. Chon, and C. Ahn. 2014. Planning landscape corridors in ecological infrastructure using least-cost path methods based on the value of ecosystem services. Sustainability 6(11): 7564–7585.

Li, J.L., Y.C. Liu, R.L. Pu, Q.X. Yuan, X.L. Shi, Q.D. Guo, and X.Y. Song. 2018. Coastline and landscape changes in bay areas caused by human activities: A comparative analysis of Xiangshan Bay, China and Tampa Bay, USA. Journal of Geographical Sciences 28(8): 1127–1151.

Li, P.X., and J. Fan. 2014. Regional ecological vulnerability assessment of the Guangxi Xijiang River Economic Belt in southwest China with VSD model. Journal of Resources and Ecology 5(2): 163–170.

Li, T., F. Shilling, J. Thorne, F.M. Li, H. Schott, R. Boynton, and A.M. Berry. 2010. Fragmentation of China’s landscape by roads and urban areas. Landscape Ecology 25(6): 839–853.

Li, X.L., L. Wang, and S. Liu. 2016. Geographical analysis of community resilience to seismic hazard in southwest China. International Journal of Disaster Risk Science 7(3): 257–276.

Lin, G.C.S., and S.P.S. Ho. 2003. China’s land resources and land-use change: Insights from the 1996 land survey. Land Use Policy 20(2): 87–107.

Liou, Y., A.K. Nguyen, and M.H. Li. 2017. Assessing spatiotemporal eco-environmental vulnerability by Landsat data. Ecological Indicators 80: 52–65.

Lockhart, J., and N. Koper. 2018. Northern prairie songbirds are more strongly influenced by grassland configuration than grassland amount. Landscape Ecology 33(9): 1543–1558.

McGarigal, K., S.A. Cushman, M.C. Neel, and E. Ene. 2012. FRAGSTATS v4: Spatial pattern analysis program for categorical and continuous maps. Amherst, MA: University of Massachusetts. http://www.umass.edu/landeco/research/fragstats/fragstats.html. Accessed 15 Dec 2018.

Myers, N., R.A. Mittermeier, C.G. Mittermeier, G.A.B. da Fonseca, and J. Kent. 2000. Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403(6772): 853–858.

Mörtberg, U.M., B. Balfors, and W.C. Knol. 2007. Landscape ecological assessment: A tool for integrating biodiversity issues in strategic environmental assessment and planning. Journal of Environmental Management 82(4): 457–470.

National Bureau of Statistics of China. 2016. China statistical yearbook 2016. Beijing, China: National Bureau of Statistics of China.

Ocaña, F.A., D. Pech, N. Simões, and I. Hernández-Ávila. 2019. Spatial assessment of the vulnerability of benthic communities to multiple stressors in the Yucatan Continental Shelf, Gulf of Mexico. Ocean & Coastal Management 181: Article 104900.

Oppio, A., and S. Corsi. 2017. Territorial vulnerability and local conflicts perspectives for waste disposals siting. A case study in Lombardy region (Italy). Journal of Cleaner Production 141: 1528–1538.

Ortega, M., S. Saura, S. González-Avila, V. Gómez-Sanz, and R. Elena-Rosselló. 2012. Landscape vulnerability to wildfires at the forest-agriculture interface: Half-century patterns in Spain assessed through the SISPARES monitoring framework. Agroforestry Systems 85(3): 331–349.

Pinto, N., and T.H. Keitt. 2009. Beyond the least-cost path: Evaluating corridor redundancy using a graph-theoretic approach. Landscape Ecology 24(2): 253–266.

Qiao, Q. 2007. Research on landscape pattern and ecological frangibility assessment of Chuan-Dian farming-pastoral zone. Beijing: Beijing Forestry University (in Chinese).

Qiao, Z., X. Yang, J. Liu, and X.L. Xu. 2013. Ecological vulnerability assessment integrating the spatial analysis technology with algorithms: A case of the wood-grass ecotone of northeast China. Abstract and Applied Analysis 2013: Article 207987.

Qiu, B.K., H.L. Li, M. Zhou, and L. Zhang. 2015. Vulnerability of ecosystem services provisioning to urbanization: A case of China. Ecological Indicators 57: 505–513.

Qiu, P.H., S.J. Xu, G.Z. Xie, B.N. Tang, H. Bi, and L.S. Yu. 2007. Analysis of the ecological vulnerability of the western Hainan Island based on its landscape pattern and ecosystem sensitivity. Acta Ecologica Sinica 27(4): 1257–1264.

Sahoo, S., A. Dhar, A. Debsarkar, and A. Kar. 2019. Future scenarios of environmental vulnerability mapping using grey analytic hierarchy process. Natural Resources Research 28(4): 1461–1483.

Song, G.B., Y. Chen, M.R. Tian, S.H. Lv, S.S. Zhang, and S.L. Liu. 2010. The ecological vulnerability evaluation in southwestern mountain region of China based on GIS and AHP method. Procedia Environmental Sciences 2: 465–475.

Technology Expert Group on Earthquake Relief, China National Commission for Disaster Reduction—The Ministry of Science and Technology. 2008. Comprehensive analysis and assessment of Wenchuan Earthquake. Beijing: Science Press.

Turner, B.L., R.E. Kasperson, P.A. Matson, J.J. McCarthy, R.W. Corell, L. Christensen, N. Eckley, J.X. Kasperson, et al. 2003. A framework for vulnerability analysis in sustainability science. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 100(14): 8074–8079.

Uddin, M.N., A.K.M.S. Islam, S.K. Bala, G.M.T. Islam, S. Adhikary, D. Saha, S. Haque, M.G.R. Fahad, and R. Akter. 2019. Mapping of climate vulnerability of the coastal region of Bangladesh using principal component analysis. Applied Geography 102: 47–57.

Wang, Y.K., B. Fu, and P. Xu. 2012. Evaluation the impact of earthquake on ecosystem services. Procedia Environmental Sciences 13(1): 954–966.

Wang, Z.H., H.L. Zeng, Y.M. Wei, and Y.X. Zhang. 2012. Regional total factor energy efficiency: An empirical analysis of industrial sector in China. Applied Energy 97: 115–123.

Wang, Z.X., D.D. Li, and H.H. Zheng. 2018. The external performance appraisal of China energy regulation: An empirical study using a TOPSIS method based on entropy weight and Mahalanobis distance. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health 15(2): Article 236.

Williams, L.R.R., and L.A. Kapustka. 2000. Ecosystem vulnerability: A complex interface with technical components. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 19(4): 1055–1058.

Xie, Z.L., X.Z. Li, D.G. Jiang, S.W. Lin, B. Yang, and S.L. Chen. 2019. Threshold of island anthropogenic disturbance based on ecological vulnerability assessment—A case study of Zhujiajian Island. Ocean and Coastal Management 167: 127–136.

Xiong, J.N., C. Peng, C.K. Fan, M. Sun, Z.Q. Liu, and Y. Gong. 2018. Dynamic monitoring of vegetation fraction change in disaster area of Wenchuan Earthquake based on MODIS time-series data. Journal of Basic Science and Engineering 26(1): 60–69 (in Chinese).

Yang, S.N., S. He, J. Du, and X.H. Sun. 2015. Screening of social vulnerability to natural hazards in China. Natural Hazards 76(1): 1–18.

Ying, X., G.M. Zeng, G.Q. Chen, L. Tang, K.L. Wang, and D.Y. Huang. 2007. Combining AHP with GIS in synthetic evaluation of eco-environment quality—A case study of Hunan Province, China. Ecological Modelling 209(2): 97–109.

Yu, D.Y., B. Xun, P.J. Shi, H.B. Shao, and Y.P. Liu. 2012. Ecological restoration planning based on connectivity in an urban area. Ecological Engineering 46: 24–33.

Zang, Z., X.Q. Zou, P. Zuo, Q.C. Song, C.L. Wang, and J.J. Wang. 2017. Impact of landscape patterns on ecological vulnerability and ecosystem service values: An empirical analysis of Yancheng Nature Reserve in China. Ecological Indicators 72(72): 142–152.

Zhang, X.Q., C.B. Wang, E.K. Li, and C.D. Xu. 2014. Assessment model of ecoenvironmental vulnerability based on improved entropy weight method. The Scientific World Journal 2014: Article 797814.

Relative Articles

Supplements(0)

Cited By

Proportional views