Ecological restoration zoning of territorial space based on the pattern simulation of eco-security scenario: A case study of Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area

Ecological restoration zoning of territorial space could help to promote the integrity and systematicity of ecological restoration work. Using ecological security pattern theory to carry out ecological restoration zoning is a classically technical model, but the existing zoning schemes do not consider the landscape changes of land use caused by high-intensity human activities, which is not conducive to shaping the territorially ecological security pattern at the urban agglomeration scale. To this end, this paper designs a zoning scheme for ecological restoration of territorial space based on scenario simulation, and takes Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay area as an example for verification. The framework firstly simulates the land use landscape pattern at the end of urbanization by coupling the spatial Markov chain and the cellular automaton model; then uses the "ecological source-ecological corridor-ecological network" theory to construct the basic framework of territorially ecological security pattern. Finally, the minimum cumulative resistance model of ecological process was used to identify the key areas of ecological restoration, ecological regulation and double repair. The research shows that:(1) patterns of land use change has a greater impact on the scheme of ecological restoration zoning, and the difference in the size of the zoning area caused by different landscape patterns can be up to about 10% of the territorial space.(2) The potential impact on the pattern change due to the human activities should be well considered for the ecological restoration zoning, which in turn makes the ecological restoration policy more conducive to regulating the ecological security pattern of territorial space. The technical framework planned for ecological restoration of territorial space in this research can further promote the ecological security theory in the application of territorially spatial planning.