Identification of conservation priority areas on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau by integrating ecosystem features and service to enhance conservation benefits

Abstract

Ecological conservation is a crucial approach for humanity to manage ecosystems sustainably, and significant progress has been made in recent years. With substantial funding being invested in conservation measures, the optimization of protected areas has become a key research focus for balancing ecological and economic development. Within ecological conservation, ecosystem services have gradually gained increasing attention. Selecting Conservation Priority Areas (CPAs) as an important measure for optimizing protected areas network has been widely adopted. However, ecosystem features that closely related to ecological conservation measures have often been overlooked in the process of identifying CPAs. Therefore, to elucidate the role of ecological features in optimizing protected areas, this study assessed ecological stability (ESI) and vulnerability (EVI) and water-related ecosystem services (WES). These above features were integrated to identify multi-level CPAs on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) using the ordered weighted averaging (OWA) method. The results indicate that enhanced trade-off can significantly improve conservation efficiency. The CPAs at level 1 and 2 account for 10.21% and 25.38% of the QTP, respectively, including the regions with high EVI and WES. The conservation efficiency of 1-level CPA (3.718) is more than four times that of others (0.883). Nature reserves provide an effective protection for the ecosystem services and functions in high-level CPAs. CPAs that incorporate ecological features can improve conservation benefits. Therefore, a multi-level CPA identification approach integrating ecological features is effective to support recommended for the optimization of protected areas spatially.