Identification of Township-Scale Ecological Restoration Priority Areas Based on Ecological Security Pattern and Multi-Method Integration

The scientific establishment of ecological security pattern and identification of ecological restoration priority areas are key for territorial space ecological restoration and people’s well-being enhancement. Although numerous studies have addressed this topic, most focused on regional and urban scales. As the most basic administrative units in China, townships serve as a crucial link between macro-ecological protection strategies and micro-ecological restoration practices and are essential for effectively implementing ecological restoration and supporting rural revitalization practices, but research at this scale is currently lacking. Therefore, taking a typical township in Shanghai as an example, this study incorporated the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs (InVEST) model, Morphological Spatial Pattern Analysis (MSPA), landscape connectivity analysis, and circuit theory to construct an ecological security pattern and identify ecological restoration priority areas at the township scale, as well as to discuss corresponding ecological restoration strategies. The results showed that: (1) The study area contained 19 significant ecological sources (area of approximately 4.85 km²), exhibiting a spatial pattern characterized by “north–south concentration, central dispersion”. High-resistance areas were mainly distributed in areas with dense human activity and high development intensity, reflecting the significant impact of human activities on ecological processes. There were 32 main ecological corridors with a total length of 58.06 km, showing significant spatial imbalance, with some northern ecological sources at the risk of forming ecological isolated islands. (2) The ecological restoration priority areas mainly consisted of 41 ecological pinch points (area of approximately 27.24 ha) and 30 ecological barrier points (area of approximately 25.67 ha), which were crucial for enhancing ecological network connectivity and maintaining ecological security. (3) Based on the current land use status and spatial distribution characteristics of key ecological restoration areas, a hierarchical and categorized ecological restoration strategy was formulated. This study can strengthen research on identifying ecological restoration priority areas at the township scale. The methodological system established can provide a theoretical framework for ecological restoration research in similar areas. Moreover, this study pinpointed key areas and the spatial layout for ecological restoration, which helped to enhance the level of refined ecological governance at the township level and can also provide precise spatial decision-making basis for ecological restoration of the township territorial space.