Scientific solutions for the functional zoning of nature reserves in China

Reasonable zoning of the nature reserve (NR) is the key to maintain the reserve's ecological functions for sustainable development. Many zoning designs in the past years were too subjective and lack of scientific contents. The aim of this paper is to find the new approaches for NRs’ functional zoning. We firstly analyzed the practical problems occurred in the functional zoning of giant panda NRs in China. Secondly, a reasonable index system to guide zoning was established for the case study area—Laoxiancheng NR. Finally two new zoning approaches were developed, which were all automatic realization methods based on spatial analysis using GIS.The habitat suitability assessment (HSA)-based approach considered both natural landscape factors and human disturbing factors. It integrated the outputs of landscape suitability assessment and human disturbance assessment with overlaying the trail density of giant pandas. The HSA zoning showed that (1) 72.2% trail locations of giant panda lied within the core zone, while all human settlements were sited inside the experimental zone; (2) the core zone contained 82.3% suitable habitat patches, while the experimental zone defined 82% human disturbed areas. The least-cost distance calculation (LCDC)-based approach described the degrees of species conservation and of landscape resistance on species. The animal's selective movement process could be reflected by the spatial variation of the least-cost distance. We classified the least-cost distance using the standard deviation and obtained three thresholds for the core, buffer and experimental zones of Laoxiancheng NR. The LCDC zoning showed that (1) the selection of three thresholds for functional zoning was the key step of this approach; (2) the different safety-level zonings can be designed by utilizing the classification of standard deviation; and the used medium safety-level zoning produced the core, buffer and experimental zones with the areas of 77.37, 22.51 and 25.25 km2, respectively.Two zoning results demonstrated that two approaches will be useful for species conservation and NR management and can be applied and extended to the relevant nature reserves which aim at the preservation of the endangered species and their habitats. They make it possible to avoid the subjective and non-scientific zoning.