Impacts of land management practice strategy on regional ecosystems: Enlightenment from ecological redline adjustment in Jiangsu, China

China’s ecological redline (ER) policy is one of the spatial planning approaches for ecosystem services to land management practices. Exploring ER can promote the international community’s understanding of institutional reform and the scientific cognition needed to move from sustainable development theory to practice. Recently, the main decision-making department of ER has been transitioned from the ecological environment department to the natural resources department to better implement environmental management policies. The early ER based on ecosystem services hotspots cannot meet the rigid requirements of protection and development, adjustments have been made based on land management practices. Nevertheless, it is not known whether this adjustment process has an impact on regional ecosystems. This paper attempts to analyze the impact of ER adjustment in Jiangsu on the regional ecosystem from three aspects: ecological network stability, ecological source connectivity, and ecological function importance. The results show that (1) the habitat components formed by ER have been reduced from 144 before adjustment to 125 after adjustment. Fragmented habitat components are gradually merged through the ER adjustment to form a more stable network structure. (2) The number of adjusted high-value connectivity regions of source ER increases, and ER adjustment reduces the resistance of high-intensity man-made disturbances and improves the connectivity between ERs. (3) The main ecological functions around ER have not changed significantly before and after the adjustment. The reduction of low-value functional agglomeration areas is the main performance characteristics of local ecological function changes. Overall, ER adjustment strategy based on land management practices has not negatively affected regional ecosystems. The results have a scientific reference for natural resource management and ecological environment protection in regions with rapid urbanization and highly land-intensive areas around the world.