Evaluation of Potential Ecological Risks of Mining in North Guangdong Ecological Reserves

Mining is prone to cause land encroachment, geologic disasters, vegetation destruction, environmental pollution and other problems in the surrounding areas. As an important ecological barrier and water conservation area in Guangdong Province, the study of ecological risk assessment caused by mining is crucial for regional ecological protection and risk prevention. Based on the ecological risk evaluation model of “ecological disturbance risk x importance of ecosystem service functions”, the current situation investigation and evaluation study was carried out on the example of the northern Guangdong ecological reserve. By constructing the ecological risk evaluation index system and using the hierarchical analysis method and ARCGIS platform, the potential ecological risks were characterized. The results show that: (1) The areas with higher ecological disturbance risk levels and high values account for a larger proportion of the area, which are mainly distributed in the east-central part of the northern Guangdong Ecological Reserve. (2) The potential ecological risks in the study area were generally low, and the higher ecological risk areas showed localized aggregation, accounting for 3.99% of the total area, mainly in the upper reaches of the Dongjiang River, around the Nanshui Reservoir, and in the coastal river areas in western Guangdong. There is significant spatial aggregation in the causes of high ecological risk, and environmental pollution and land encroachment significantly affect ecological risk.