Construction and optimization of ecological security pattern in Ebinur Lake Basin based on MSPA-MCR models

•The Ebinur Lake basin ecological security pattern has four zones and two belts.•We selected 20 ecological source sites based on dIIC and dPC values and area size.•We identified two important ecological source sites, Ebinur Lake and Sayram Lake.•Our findings will aid ecological environment protection in arid zone inland basins.•Our method is applicable and effective for watersheds in arid and semi-arid regions. The ecological environment of inland river basins in arid zones is extremely fragile, and even small changes in the ecosystem may greatly influence the ecological protection of the basin. Most of the previous studies on the construction and optimization of ecological safety patterns, directly used large areas of water, grassland, and woodland as ecological source sites without considering the connectivity between landscapes. In this study, the large landscape connectivity index and the probability of connectivity values were used to determine the ecological source areas, taking landscape connectivity into account. Ebinur lake basin is an important barrier in northwest China. Taking Ebinur lake basin as a research object, the results show that: (1) there are 20 important ecological sources in the Ebinur Lake basin, mainly in the water and forest-grassland areas, including two waters ecological source areas in Ebinur Lake and Sayram Lake; (2) 190 ecological corridors were estimated by the minimum cumulative resistance model, and 59 level 1 ecological corridors were mainly located in the western part of Ebinur Lake, and 70 level 2 ecological corridors were also mainly located in the western part of Ebinur Lake by the gravity model after removing the redundant ecological corridors. (3) Based on hotspot and spatial directional analyses of ecological resistance and habitat quality, the ecological security pattern of 'four zones and two belts' was constructed. This can provide a reference for the protection and restoration of the ecological environment in the inland basin of the arid zone.