Protected Natural Areas’ Management Effectiveness Assessment And Protection Pattern Construction Through Mapping "Climate Change-Ecological Value-Human Disturbance"

Under the combined effects of climate change and human modification,the biodiversity of the Earth is continuing to decline at an alarming rate,and its capacity to provide ecosystem services is significantly degraded.In this context,the integrated governance of climate change response,biodiversity conservation,ecosystem function enhancement and human activity impact mitigation is increasingly mainstreamed.The establishment of protected natural areas to protect species and their habitats in situ is the common grip for synergizing the above goals.How effective is the management of the current protected natural areas network? How representative is their current layout? How can the spatial pattern be constructed scientifically in the future? These are the most urgent and controversial questions in the process of protected natural areas reform and construction in China and around the world,which need to be supported by relevant scientific researches.This research selected the Southwest China(one of the richest biodiversity regions in the World)as study area,constructed a multidimensional,scientific and efficient index system to map climate change,ecological values(including biodiversity and ecosystem services),and human disturbance at a fine scale of 1 km×1 km.Then,the propensity score matching method was used to assess the management effectiveness of the protected natural areas.Next,conservation hotspots were identified based on the principles of most climate-vulnerable,most ecologically valuable,and least human-disturbed.Accordingly,this research ultilized overlay analysis and gap analysis to determine the representativeness of the current layout of the protected natural area network in the Southwest China.Finally,the unprotected primary,secondary and tertiary conservation priority areas were incorporated stepwise into the protected natural area system and the systematic conservation pattern in 2025,2030 and 2050 was built up.The main conclusions of this research are as follows:(1)From 2000 to 2020,the annual average temperature of 1.67% protected natural areas in the Southwest China decreases and the annual average temperature of 98.33%protected natural areas increases;the annual precipitation of 67.36% protected natural areas decreases and of 32.64% increases.The climate change intensity projections under the three global climate models(GCMs)GISS-E2-1-H,IPSL-CM6A-LR,and MPIESM1-2-LR all indicate that the climate change in the southern Tibetan region and the mountains on the western edge of the Sichuan basin may be the most intense during the100-year period from 1961 to 2060,while the climate in the central and northern Tibet Autonomous Region is projected be relatively stable.(2)The distribution of hotspots for different species categories in the Southwest China vary significantly.Suitable habitats of one category of species cannot fully cover that of other species categories.The approach of using flagship or umbrella species(e.g.,giant panda,Yunnan golden snub-nosed monkey,etc.)as representatives of sympatric species for protected natural area design may have significant hidden risks.A significant portion of areas with high climate change intensity overlap with the biodiversity hotspots in the Southwest China.Given that the rate of climate change is likely to far exceed the migration capacity of many species,coupled with reduced habitat connectivity due to human disturbance,most species will face greater threats than they currently do.(3)From 2000 to 2020,the average human disturbance index of the protected natural areas in the Southwest China increases by 5.420,with a growth rate of 341.05%.Compared with the dramatic increase of human disturbance in the whole Southwest China,the increase of human disturbance index in protected natural areas is relatively small,and most of the protected natural areas(87.03%)have an increase of human disturbance index in the range of 0～10.The protection level of protected natural areas has a greater impact on their ability to mitigate human disturbance.Compared to county-level and provinciallevel protected natural areas,national-level protected natural areas show a significant advantage in human disturbance mitigation(4)According to the propensity score matching and relative effectiveness assessment results,from 2000 to 2020,52 protected natural areas(21.94%)are effectively managed in three aspects: climate change,ecological value and human disturbance;37.13% are effectively managed in two aspects;32.07% are effectively managed in only one aspect;and 8.86% are effectively managed in none of the obove three aspects.Of the 52 protected natural areas with “excellent” management effectiveness,36 are located in Sichuan Province.(5)The primary protection hotspots account for 2.01%,secondary protection hotspots for 10.14%,and tertiary protection hotspots for 30.81% of the total area in the Southwest China.The coverage rates of primary and secondary conservation hotspots in the Southwest China are relatively low(only 11.23% and 12.56% respectively),while the coverage rate of tertiary conservation hotspots reaches 39.80%.The overlap rate of protected natural areas with tertiary protection hotspots is the highest at 54.91%;with secondary protection hotspots,5.70%;and with primary protection hotspots,only 1.00%.There are outstanding conservation biases in the existing protected natural areas network in the Southwest China and the current protected natural areas network may not be able to reach its maximum conservation potential due to insufficient coverage area and unreasonable spatial layout.(6)Combined with the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework and the HalfEarth Initiative,this research proposed conservation goals for the Southwest China: by2025,24.10% of the Southwest China is expected to be protected;by 2030,32.97% of the Southwest China is expected to be included in the protected natural area network,basically achieving the target in the Kunming-Montreal Biodiversity Framework;by 2050,a total of 51.51% of the Southwest China is expected to be effectively protected in various conservation forms.The main innovations of this study are:(1)By integrating“climate change-ecological value-human disturbance”,this study evaluates the management effectiveness and layout representativeness of the protected natural area network in a multidimensional,scientific and efficient way,which improves the shortcomings of the previous evaluations with single dimension and cumbersome process;(2)This study explores the construction path of China’s future systematic conservation pattern at a fine scale,which breaks through the limitations of the previous studies conducted at the macro level.