Research Article |
Corresponding author: Hexian Jin ( lotusjhx@zafu.edu.cn ) Academic editor: Ji-Zhong Wan
© 2022 Yuanna Zhu, Hexian Jin, Le Zhong.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Zhu Y, Jin H, Zhong L (2022) Temporal and spatial changes of biodiversity in Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing, Zhejiang Province, China from 1990 to 2020. Nature Conservation 48: 1-29. https://doi.org/10.3897/natureconservation.48.76273
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Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing (CHPB) are the earliest Ecological Reserve in China, but in recent years, due to the accelerated process of urbanization and weak protection, the Chinese traditional ecological reserve represented by CHPB has been damaged to a certain extent. How to accurately measure the dynamic changes of ecological value in existing ecological protection and construct is an initial topic of CHPB protection. To understand the temporal and spatial changes characteristics of biodiversity in CHPB, this paper selects three-time nodes in 1990, 2005, and 2020, and takes CHPB in Zhejiang Province as an example, comprehensive three influencing factors: habitat quality, landscape pattern, and nighttime-light. To provide a relevant theoretical basis for the protection of CHPB, this paper quantitatively analyzes the changes of ecological environment and biodiversity in recent 30 years. The results showed that from 1990 to 2020, the biodiversity of CHPB in Zhejiang Province showed a positive change, the decline in Caverns of Heaven overall area slowed down, and the core area rebounded. The spatial distribution change of biodiversity is highly consistent with the land-use changes. The low value regions of biodiversity are mainly concentrated in the regions with intensive human activities, and the area decreases with the expansion of construction land. The core areas are primary areas with high biodiversity and overlap with nature reserves, natural parks, Scenic and Historic Interest Area, and other protected areas. In a word, CHPB still plays a vital role in ecological and environmental protection. In the future development, we should still pay attention to its biodiversity protection, and give full play to its role in ecological and environmental protection, and realize the contemporary application of CHPB’s traditional ecological knowledge.
Comprehensive biodiversity, habitat quality, landscape pattern, nighttime-light, traditional Protected Areas
Biodiversity refers to all species and organisms on the earth or in a specific ecosystem, which can provide human beings with a large number of and multifaceted well-being (
Protected Areas are currently the most effective biodiversity conservation measures globally (
Since establishing the CHPB system in the Tang Dynasty, CHPB has been effectively protected under official-led protection measures. However, in recent years, with the excessive tourism development and the acceleration of urbanization, the land-use and the spatial density of human activities in CHPB and its surrounding areas have changed greatly. These two changes are the main driving factors for the reducing biodiversity (
In recent years, with the rapid development of remote sensing technology, there have been more and more studies on landscape biodiversity assessment by building models or based on qualitative scoring systems. Compared with the traditional field measurement and statistical methods (
Based on remote sensing data, people often analyze biodiversity changes on a large regional scale from the perspective of landscape biodiversity with habitat quality (
Habitat quality is an important indicator of regional ecological security and can reflect the level of regional biodiversity (
Landscape pattern also has a profound impact on biodiversity and its dynamics. Landscape pattern refers to the spatial arrangement and combination of landscape elements with different sizes and shapes, including the type, number, spatial distribution and configuration of landscape components (
With the intensification of urbanization, the impact of human activities on biodiversity is expanding (
Previous studies mainly evaluated biodiversity changes from a single dimension of habitat quality, landscape pattern, and nighttime-light. However, the changes in biodiversity are not only affected by one factor and often affected by multiple factors simultaneously (
Zhejiang Province is the area with the most concentration of CHPB in China. In addition to the traditional mountain type, its landscape characteristics also include characteristics such as coastal and plain, including the main landscape types of CHPB in China. Therefore, the study of CHPB in Zhejiang Province has guiding significance for CHPB in China. The modern construction of CHPB is mainly reflected in the development of tourism activities, especially in the development of Scenic and Historic Interest Area (
Therefore, combined with the actual situation of the natural conditions, human activity interference degree and the operability of the assessment, three key time nodes that may be closely related to the ecological environment change of CH blessed land in 1990, 2005, and 2020 are selected. The three indicators of habitat quality, landscape pattern index and night light intensity are integrated to reflect the temporal and spatial changes of biodiversity in CHPB, Zhejiang Province, in order to provide reference for the management and protection of CHPB.
Zhejiang Province (118°01'–123°10'E, 27°02'–31°11'N), located in the south wing of the Yangtze River Delta along the southeast coast of China, in the transition zone between Eurasia and the Northwest Pacific, belongs to a typical subtropical monsoon climate zone. The monsoon is remarkable, the four seasons are distinct, the annual temperature is moderate, the sunshine is sufficient, the rainfall is abundant, the air is humid, the rain is hot in the same season, the climate resource allocation is diverse. There are many meteorological disasters. Zhejiang Province has a land area of about 101800 km2. The terrain fluctuates wildly. The landscape tilts from southwest to northeast. There are mountains in the southwest and northwest, hills and basins in the middle and Southeast, and plains in the northeast. The forest area reaches 60591 km2, and the forest coverage rate reaches 61%, ranking in the forefront of the country.
In Taoism, CHPB refers to a famous mountain resort where immortals live. It has an ideal natural environment and rich biodiversity. The thought of CHPB originated in the Jin Dynasty (265–420 A.D) and matured in the Tang Dynasty (618–907 A.D). There are 10 “Great Caverns of Heaven”, 36 “Lesser Caverns of Heaven” and 72 “Places of Blessing”. Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing (CHPB) refers to the general name of Caverns of Heaven (including Great Caverns of Heaven and Lesser Caverns of Heaven) and Places of Blessing. In Taoism, it is considered that the natural environment of Caverns of Heaven (CH) is better than Places of Blessing (PB). According to the “Plan of Celestial and Terrestrial Palaces and Residences” (hereinafter referred to as “Plan”) written by Sima Chengzhen of the Tang Dynasty. Zhejiang Province has 30 CHPB, accounting for 25.4% of the total, including 3 Great Caverns of Heaven, 9 Lesser Caverns of Heaven, 18 Places of Blessing. Extant can be verified for 3 Great Caverns of Heaven, 9 Lesser Caverns of Heaven, 14 Places of Blessing. The ancient Chinese determined the central position of CHPB according to the advantages and disadvantages of the ecological environment. When delimiting the protection scope, not only the areas with excellent ecological environment will be included in the protection, but also the surrounding human activity areas will be included in the protection management. “Plan” indicates the central position of the mountain where the main caves and palace buildings area in CHPB and also clearly records the overall protection scope of CH. The broad protection scope of CH is “30 Li (a unit of length was used in ancient China) of Zhouhui (i.e., the circumference)” to “10000 Li of Zhouhui”, and “1 Li” is about “531 m” of the modern international metric system. However, the overall scope of PB has not been determined.
To sum up, the study on the diversity of CHPB in Zhejiang Province includes two aspects: 1) core area: the area contained in the central outer contour of the mountains where each CHPB is located, which are respectively recorded as CH core area and PB core area, collectively referred to as CHPB core area. 2) Overall area: offset the main outer contour line of the mountain where each CH is located outward to the perimeter equal to the “ Zhouhui” length of the CH, which is the scope of the CH. Since PB does not specify “Zhou Hui” in the “Plan”, this study does not delimit the overall area of PB. Hence, the overall area study only refers to the overall area of CH, which is recorded as the CH overall area. Considering that the scope of the second Great Caverns of Heaven is too large, some areas exceed the scope of Zhejiang Province, and overlap with most of CHPB in Zhejiang, to simplify the research and data display, this study reduces its scope to “thousands of Li”. The specific distribution and scope of CHPB are shown in Fig.
The remote sensing data used for habitat quality assessment and landscape pattern index analysis were analyzed through Geospatial Data Cloud (www.gscloud.cn). The data in 1990 and 2005 are from Landsat5 TM, and the data in 2020 are from Landsat8 OLI_TIRS, the image resolution is 30 meters. The nighttime-light data is from the national Qinghai Tibet Plateau scientific data center (http://data.tpdc.ac.cn) (
To include all the influencing factors as much as possible and eliminate the interference due to subjective reasons, this study first processes the data of Zhejiang Province. It then extracts the relevant data within the scope of the research object for analysis and discussion. The specific reasons are as follows: first, if only the content of CHPB is used to delimit the processing scope, the shape and size of the patch will be changed. As a result, the landscape pattern used for analysis differs from the actual landscape pattern. Secondly, the ecological environment and biodiversity of a region are often affected by internal and external environmental factors (
When using satellite remote sensing data to research on a large spatial scale, the Habitat Quality module of InVEST model is often used to evaluate the habitat quality (
Parameters of threat factors, habitat suitability of different habitat types, and sensitivity to threat factors.
Land-use type code | Types of land-use | Relative habitat suitability | Threat factor† | ||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Residential & industrial/mining land | Arable land | Railways and highways | National/pro-vincial roads | County roads | |||
1 | Arable land | 0.30 | 0.20 | 0.30 | 0.20 | 0.20 | 0.15 |
2 | Forest & grasslands | 1.00 | 0.70 | 0.50 | 0.45 | 0.40 | 0.30 |
3 | Waters | 1.00 | 0.80 | 0.70 | 0.60 | 0.60 | 0.50 |
4 | Residential & industrial/mining land | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 | 0.00 |
5 | Unused land | 0.01 | 0.10 | 0.10 | 0.20 | 0.20 | 0.10 |
Maximum impact distance (km) | 9 | 1 | 1.5 | 2 | 0.7 | ||
Weight | 0.7 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.8 | 0.4 | ||
Relevance | exponential | exponential | linear | linear | linear |
FRAGSTATS is the most commonly used landscape pattern index calculation software, which is used to calculate various landscape indexes of classified map patterns and quantify landscape structure (
Nighttime-light data are derived from satellite remote sensing data and based on the ArcGIS 10.2 platform for data processing. By using the Jenks classification method (
Referring to the comprehensive biodiversity assessment model established by Gong (
The remote sensing data come from Geospatial Data Cloud (www.gscloud.cn).
The nighttime-light data is from the national Qinghai Tibet Plateau scientific data center (http://data.tpdc.ac.cn).
According to the calculation results of InVest model, the habitat quality change graph (Fig.
Habitat quality changes of Caverns of Heaven (CH) overall area & Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing (CH, PB) core area in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2020.
The results of landscape pattern index calculation showed that: 1) the indexes of CH overall area and CHPB core area have, except for LPI, all values increased, and the scope of landscape pattern index changed gradually expanded (Fig.
Landscape pattern indices’ changes of Caverns of Heaven (CH) overall area in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2020.
Comprehensive landscape pattern index changes of Caverns of Heaven (CH) overall area & Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing (CH, PB) core area in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2020.
The overall increase of nighttime-light intensity in Zhejiang province is large. 1) In 1990, the nighttime-light intensity of CH overall area and CH core area was almost the same level as the average of the whole province. After that, it was higher than the average level of the whole province. Besides, the growth trend of the CH core area was the most prominent, with both intensity level and the growth rate higher than other areas obviously. 2) The nighttime-light intensity of the PB core area was lower than that of other areas at all stages, and the growth rate in 2005–2020 slowed down, 368.553 less than that in 1990–2005. (Fig.
Nighttime-light intensity changes of Caverns of Heaven (CH) overall area & Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing (CH, PB) core area in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2020.
The habitat quality, landscape pattern index and nighttime-light intensity were standardized, and the comprehensive biodiversity evaluation results were obtained by weighted superposition (Table
Average and standard deviation of comprehensive biodiversity in Caverns of Heaven (CH) overall area & Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing (CH, PB) core areas in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2020.
PB core area | CH core area | CH overall area | Zhejiang Province | |||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Average | Standard deviation | Average | Standard deviation | Average | Standard deviation | Average | Standard deviation | |
1990 | 4.309 | 0.615 | 4.216 | 0.710 | 3.875 | 1.010 | 3.922 | 0.983 |
2005 | 4.187 | 0.667 | 4.014 | 0.977 | 3.728 | 1.125 | 3.797 | 1.098 |
2020 | 4.277 | 0.669 | 4.049 | 0.919 | 3.661 | 1.170 | 3.649 | 1.202 |
Comprehensive biodiversity changes of Caverns of Heaven (CH) overall area & Caverns of Heaven and Places of Blessing (CH, PB) core area in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2020.
Biodiversity changes of Caverns of Heaven (CH) overall area in Zhejiang Province from 1990 to 2020.
Habitat quality, landscape pattern, and nighttime-light intensity had different influences on regional biodiversity were distinct in different periods. The CH overall area was mainly affected by the habitat quality and nighttime-light intensity in 1990–2005, and mainly by the habitat quality and landscape pattern in 2005–2020; From 1990 to 2020, the effects of the three factors were evident in the CH core area, and the impact of habitat quality is dominant; the main influencing factors of the PB core area were nighttime-light and landscape pattern in 1990–2005, and was landscape pattern in 2005–2020 (Fig.
Compared with the biodiversity changes in the whole province, CHPB has played a positive role in biodiversity protection. Under the influence of habitat quality, landscape pattern and nighttime-light, the temporal and spatial differentiation is evident: from 1990 to 2020, the trend of biodiversity change in CHPB in Zhejiang Province showed positive changes,in which the decline rate of CH overall area slowed down, and the CHPB core area rebounded. The spatial distribution change of comprehensive biodiversity is highly consistent with the land-use change. The low value areas of comprehensive biodiversity are mainly concentrated in the areas with intensive human activities, which continue to decrease with construction land expansion. The core areas are primary areas with high comprehensive biodiversity, which are highly overlapped with natural parks, Scenic and Historic Interest Area, and other protected areas.
Although there is no research on the biodiversity of CHPB at present, the research on nature reserves has found that the spatial change of biodiversity at the landscape level is significantly related to land-use changes, and the downward trend has slowed down under effective protection measures, and the biodiversity in the core area is higher than that in other areas. The results of this study are similar to those of other countries (
Combined with the actual situation of CHPB and the differences of habitat quality, landscape pattern and nighttime-light on biodiversity changes in different periods, it is speculated that the reasons for these changes may be as follows: 1) most of the core areas of CHPB are far away from the urban center and close to mountains and forests, mainly relying on natural landscapes such as mountains and lakes, with rich biodiversity, high habitat suitability, and ecological environment. The system is relatively stable and has a stronger recovery ability after being damaged. As for CH overall area, in addition to forest land, grassland, lakes and other areas, it also covers a large number of cultivated land, construction land, and other areas, which is more related to human activities. Biodiversity change is greatly affected by economic and social development concepts (
Therefore, in the follow-up development planning, we should fully consider the ecological regulation capacity of CHPB, avoid over development and construction, and exceed our ecological balance capacity. We should standardize the tourism development behavior, especially the construe of supporting tourism facilities such as homestay (B&B), rural tourism around the core area, and deal with the relationship between natural ecology, social economy and community residents at the boundary of CHPB. Paying attention to protecting human activity areas is the best way to preserve biodiversity and effectively reduce the pressure on protected areas (
In a word, CHPB, which has a history of nearly 2000 years, is the prototype of the protected areas and still has important historical, cultural and ecological value. From 1990 to 2020, based on the site conditions of CHPB in Zhejiang Province, the comprehensive biodiversity reflected by CHPB in Zhejiang Province showed positive changes in habitat quality, landscape pattern and nighttime-light intensity under the joint action of the concept of economic and social development, the construction of Scenic and Historic Interest Area and Taoist ecological protection measures. It plays a vital role in ecological and environmental protection. Understanding the temporal and spatial changes of CHPB biodiversity is of great significance to CHPB protection. In the future development, we should still pay attention to its biodiversity protection. Play its role in ecological and environmental protection and realize the contemporary application of traditional ecological knowledge in CHPB.
Mr. Hu Wenhao of Zhejiang agriculture and Forestry University put forward many valuable opinions in the process of revising the paper. I would like to express my sincere thanks.