[Ecological vulnerability assessment on Changbai Mountain National Nature Reserve and its surrounding areas, Northeast China]

Exploring the ecological vulnerability of nature reserve and its surrounding area is essential to the maintenance of regional ecological security and sustainability of human development, especially under the stress of global change and human activities. Based on the integration of "sensitivity-resilience-pressure" conceptual model and spatial principal component analysis (SPCA), we analyzed the ecological vulnerability of Changbai Mountain National Nature Reserve and its surrounding 30 km buffer in 2005 and 2015. The main driving factors were further analyzed. The results showed that the ecological vulnerability of Changbai Mountain Nature Reserve was mainly potential, slight, and light levels in 2005 and 2015, indicating the ecological vulnerability inside and outside the reserve was in a good condition. For the whole region, the ecological vulnerability showed a slight downward trend from 2005 to 2015. The degradation area inside and outside the reserve were 254 and 967 km², respectively, with the contribution rate to the increase of overall vulnerability being 30.8% and 69.2%, respectively. The changes in ecological vulnerability inside the reserve were mainly related to the changes in net primary production (NPP), vegetation coverage, and the nearest distance to the road, whereas it was mainly related to the changes in NPP, vegetation coverage and gross domestic product (GDP) density outside the reserve.