Environmental function zoning at the county level in restricted development area: a case study of Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province

As an important type of main functional area in China, the restricted development areas are areas which provide important ecosystem service function and agricultural products. Zoning in restricted development areas based on environmental function is of great significance for promoting the implementation of the environmental function zoning, and also plays an important role in protection and development of the restricted development areas. At present, method of environmental function zoning at the national and provincial levels has been relatively mature, but few focused on county level. And studies about environmental function zoning conducted in the restricted development areas are needed. Based on previous studies of environmental function zoning, we modified the method of environmental function zoning at the county level to make it could be applied in restricted development areas. We took Zhangjiakou City, Hebei Province as the study area. We combined 1 km fishnet and county boundary as research unit. Based on the result of environmental function comprehensive assessment, we made the environmental function zoning of Zhangjiakou according to three environmental function abilities, ability of protecting natural ecological security, maintaining health of human living environment, and supporting capacity of regional environment. Finally, we divided Zhangjiakou into six environmental function zones: natural ecological reserved zone, ecological function conservation zone, ecological function restoration zone, agricultural supply security zone, environment development constraint zone and settlements environment maintenance zone. The result shows that ecological function conservation zone accounts for nearly 60% of the total Zhangjiakou′s land. In accordance with its type of restricted development zoning in the main functional regions, protection natural ecological security is the leading environmental function in Zhangjiakou. 6.47% of the land is ecological function restoration zone, which is also important for providing ecosystem services but has been disturbed by human activity and it needs ecological restoration and protection. The restricted development areas have the different ecological characteristics and environment problems from other types of the main functional zoning, regionalization system and the indicators of comprehensive assessment should be modified to adjust county environmental function zoning for restricted development area. Considering th