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Functional zoning in national parks under multifactor trade-off guidance: A case study of Qinghai Lake National Park in China

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Abstract

Functional zoning is an important mechanism for achieving national park planning and management objective. Better functional zoning is of great significance to the protection of ecosystem legitimacy and integrity, the appropriate utilization of resources, community integration, and feasible management. In the present study, the proposed Qinghai Lake National Park is the research object. Based on the critical goal of ecological protection, the importance of ecosystem service functions and the ecological sensitivities were evaluated. The results showed that the ecosystem service functions and the ecological sensitivity of the whole region are high. Among them, lake, river and wetland as the most strictly protected ecosystems account for the highest proportion. Then this study divided the proposed Qinghai Lake National Park into five functional areas through grid calculations, spatial analysis and multifactor trade-off. The results indicated that the goal of functional zoning for national park is to maximize the overall utility of park protection value and its comprehensive functions based on its spatial units with different functions, management and control requirements. The zoning scheme addresses the lack of sustainable development in Qinghai Lake National Park due to ecological environmental changes and single-resource zoning with resource protection as the primary goal. This study can serve as a reference for spatial functional zoning methods of national land parks, nature reserves and other natural protected areas.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Human Settlements and Civil Engineering, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Li Zhao & Dian Zhou

  2. Northwest Surveying, Planning Institute of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory National Forestry Administration on Ecological Hydrology and Disaster Prevention in Arid Regions, Xi’an, 710048, China

    Li Zhao

  3. School of Public Policy and Administration, Xi’an Jiaotong University, Xi’an, 710049, China

    Mingxi Du & Xiang Kang

  4. School of Horticulture and Forestry, Central China Agricultural University, Wuhan, 430070, China

    Wei Zhang

  5. Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, CAS, Urumqi, 830011, China

    Congjuan Li

  6. Department of Biological Sciences, University of Quebec at Montreal, Montreal, H3C 3P8, Canada

    Qiuyu Liu

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  1. Li Zhao
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  2. Mingxi Du
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  4. Congjuan Li
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  7. Dian Zhou
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Correspondence to Dian Zhou.

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Foundation

National Key Research and Development Program of China, No.2019YFD1100401; The Young Talent Program of Xi’an Jiaotong University, No.GG6J007; The Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities, No.2662021JC009

Author

Zhao Li (1993—), PhD Candidate and Engineer, specialized in spatial planning and management policy of national parks and natural protected areas.

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Zhao, L., Du, M., Zhang, W. et al. Functional zoning in national parks under multifactor trade-off guidance: A case study of Qinghai Lake National Park in China. J. Geogr. Sci. 32, 1969–1997 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-022-2032-3

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