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Mapping lateral and longitudinal hydrological connectivity to identify conservation priority areas in the water-holding forest in Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage Site

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Abstract

Context

Hydrological connectivity (HC) reflects the flow processes of water and sediment thus affects hydrological services at different scales. Water retaining forest plays an important role in the sustainability of water regulation and provision.

Objectives

Used the water-holding forest area of the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage Site as the study area and, with a modified HC, to calculate and analyze the lateral and longitudinal HC and to identify the conservation priority areas.

Methods

We modified the popular Borselli’s index of connectivity (IC) into MIC by introducing soil factors with 81 samples, analyzed the HC characteristics by sampling belts, identified the conservation priority area by hotspots analysis at watershed and sub-watershed scales, and verified the MIC with field-measured water level and FIC index.

Results

The HC value follows a normal distribution with the average value of 8.03. Its lateral characteristics decrease from river valleys to mountain ridges, whereas its longitudinal characteristics decrease from lower to higher rainfall; this result reflects an obvious spatial gradient distribution of water-holding functions along elevation. Hotspot analysis shows that subwatersheds F and G are the conservation priority region for water-holding. The precision of the MIC is better than Borselli’s IC because of the addition of soil factors.

Conclusions

The MIC is an effective index to reflect the spatial gradient or patchy pattern of hydrological services. Its patterns can be identified by their lateral and longitudinal directions or by the hotspots of spatially clustered yet connected areas of high water-holding capacity.

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Acknowledgements

This study was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Numbers 41271203, 41761115). The authors thank the anonymous reviewers, who comprehensively contributed to this paper and provided valuable reviews of earlier versions of this manuscript, and the editors, for the editing of this manuscript.

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  1. School of Tourism and Geographical Sciences, Yunnan Normal University, No. 768 Juxian Street, Chenggong District, Kunming, 650500, China

    Yuanmei Jiao, Dongmei Zhao, Qiue Xu, Zhilin Liu, Zhiqiang Ding, Yingping Ding, Chengjing Liu & Zhiqin Zha

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Jiao, Y., Zhao, D., Xu, Q. et al. Mapping lateral and longitudinal hydrological connectivity to identify conservation priority areas in the water-holding forest in Honghe Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage Site. Landscape Ecol 35, 709–725 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-00975-0

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