Environmental governance of transnational regions based on ecological security: The China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor

Ecological security patterns (ESPs) can alleviate the conflict between economic development and ecological protection to ensure regional ecological security. The present study considered the use of the China-Mongolia-Russia Economic Corridor (CMREC) for building an interregional ESP by integrating ecological vulnerability with the supply and demand of ecosystem services using the circuit theory. The results revealed that the supply and demand of ecosystem services in the CMREC were not consistently spatially distributed. High supply areas decreased from east to west and north to south, whereas high demand mainly occurred in highly urbanized areas. The supply and demand imbalance of ecosystem services affected the determination of ecological sources. Fifty-five ecological sources (529,635.56 km2), mainly distributed east of the Northeast Plain, Far East, and around Lake Baikal, were identified. There were no ecological sources in the southwest. Ecological vulnerability decreased from south to north. Mongolia (0.60) had the highest average ecological resistance, followed by China (0.42) and Russia (0.38). According to the circuit theory, 87 ecological corridors (13,306.42 km) and 13 main ecological corridors (3302.50 km) can effectively connect the ecological resources of the CMREC. These sources and corridors are dominated by forests and grasslands. The results also suggest that the connectivity of ecological corridors among the three countries should be improved, ecological restoration in the southern part of the Mongolian Plateau should be emphasized, and the functional stability of the ecological shield areas should be ensured. We propose some management guidelines for optimizing regional ESPs and collaborative environmental governance of the CMREC.