Enhancing the spatial resilience of agricultural heritage through constructing a balanced production-living-ecological space protection network

Abstract

As dynamic landscapes, agricultural heritage systems face significant challenges to resilience from imbalances in production-living-ecological space (PLES) driven by rapid environmental changes and human activities. Focusing on the Hani Rice Terraces World Heritage, this study proposes a spatial network optimization framework to enhance the connectivity and redundancy of its Agricultural Production Landscapes (APLS). The methodology integrates the MaxEnt model with multi-source data to assess the impacts of natural and socio-economic drivers on the PLES balance. This quantitative modeling allowed for the identification of core APLS source areas. Subsequently, a comprehensive resistance surface was developed, and the Minimum Cost Path algorithm was applied to construct an optimized protection network. Quantitative analysis demonstrates that the resulting integrated network exhibits significantly enhanced structural connectivity and functional redundancy. This framework offers a practical, scientifically-grounded approach for managing complex heritage systems, providing a replicable decision-support tool for enhancing spatial resilience through targeted protection strategies. (Figure presented.)