A multi-scale approach to mapping conservation priorities for rural China based on landscape context

Integration of agricultural, cultural and natural conservation to address land-use change risk has become a crucial issue for rural sustainability, especially for China with dense population and undergoing hyper-urbanization. There is not yet a specific study going with conservation of the whole rural landscape at national level. In this paper, a multi-scale approach is presented as a first proxy to meet this challenge through synthetically combining agricultural, cultural and natural conservation concerns of rural landscape within a spatially analytical framework of landscape vulnerability assessment. This framework consists of three main indicators (exposure, sensitivity and resilience), aiming to identify vulnerable rural areas under land-use changes based on the assumption that more vulnerable areas should receive higher priorities in conservation. Conservation actions were also derived and mapped with conservation priorities. The results show this approach can well-address integrated conservation issue within rural areas. The top conservation priorities in rural China were identified in areas with diverse bio-culture and those significantly suffered from urbanization and rapid agriculture-nature transition. Protection actions were assigned to areas with high exposure risk, while restoration actions were set for areas with low sensitivity. Besides, management actions aimed at areas with low resilience, and maintenance actions covered areas with low exposure, high sensitivity and high resilience. Though this approach was detailed in rural China, it is applicable to any large-scale rural regions under land-use change risk. We conclude that this approach promotes integrated conservation within rural landscape and facilitate real-world implementation of its conservation actions, and suggest that further detailed examinations at refined scale will also be needed to efficiently guild local conservation practices.