Evaluating ecological conservation effectiveness of security patterns under multiple scenarios: A case study of Hubei Province

With the development of the social economy, ecological environment damage has become increasingly serious, and how to better protect ecological security has gradually attracted people's attention. This paper takes Hubei Province in China as the research object, using the PLUS model version 1.4 to design four development scenarios to predict land use and land cover changes (LUCC) in 2035: the natural development scenario (S1), the cultivated land protection scenario (S2), the ecological protection area restriction scenario (S3), and the ecological security pattern (ESP) restriction scenario (S4). The study evaluates the ecological effects under these four different scenarios using Conefor Sensinode 2.6 software, Fragstats v4.2.1 software, and the InVEST model. The conclusions are as follows: (1) ESP has better ecological landscape connectivity. (2) Comparing the ecological security indices of the four scenarios, they are 0.5378, 0.5288, 0.5318, and 0.5405, respectively, with the S4 scenario showing the best protection effect. (3) Comparing the habitat quality of the four scenarios, high-grade habitats degrade under S1 and S2 scenarios; homogenization occurs under S3 and S4 scenarios, but the retention rate of high-grade habitat areas is the highest under the S4 scenario. In conclusion, compared to natural progression and prioritizing cultivated land protection, implementing ecological protection policies yields better ecological effects, and a planned ESP provides more targeted policy recommendations.