Site selection methods of country park with priority of habitat protection in the second green isolated area of Beijing

  Objective  Under the background of China’s rapid urbanization, the ecological environment in Beijing urban fringe areas is deteriorating. The green belt has become a means to control the disordered expansion of Beijing’s built-up areas and improve the urban ecological environment. The construction of country parks within the green belt is an effective way to implement the plan. The core goal of country parks is to provide a small amount of recreational activities with ecological conservation. It should be the basic principle to protect the area with high habitat quality within the green belts.

  Method  On the basis of summarizing the relevant research of scholars at home and abroad, taking the second green belt area of Beijing as an example, this paper constructs a framework of country park site selection with priority of habitat protection, and uses the InVEST model to evaluate the habitat quality of research area. According to the habitat quality index, the habitat was divided into five grades: low habitat, general habitat, medium habitat, high habitat and extremely important habitat. Taking the most important habitat areas as the basic principle of country park site selection in the model evaluation results, the scope of priority alternative areas for habitat protection was selected, and the suitable construction area was selected by adding six external construction conditions and internal development conditions, including surrounding park resources, the built and proposed country parks, land use planning, basic farmland planning, road accessibility and current land use, and then according to the vegetation coverage type. Finally, the site selection and classification of country parks with priority of habitat protection were completed.

  Result  According to different habitats, six types of country parks were defined: mixed forest, farmland, river, broadleaved forest or coniferous forest and shrub. A total of 41 rural parks with priority of habitat protection were demarcated in Jianchang Village of Tongzhou District, Shijiaqiao Village of Changping District, Li Village of Fangshan District and other villages and towns.

  Conclusion  The evaluation results can provide a scientific basis for the location of country parks in the second green isolation area of Beijing.