Site selection in Mount Tianmu Nature Reserve based on the landscape pattern analysis of small watersheds

The establishment of the natural reserve is an important implementation to protect natural resources. This paper studies the site selection of the Mount Tianmu Nature Reserve. The original reserve area is fairly small and a demand to expand the reserve has aroused in recent years. However, there are extensive human activities around Mount Tianmu reserve. In our study, a 10-km buffer area around the reserve is divided into 295 small watersheds, and we seek to choose the watersheds that are suitable to be included in the reserve under a principle that the human activities should be as few as possible. Landscape pattern indices, like Patch Density (PD) and Percentage of Landscape (PLAND), are adopted to evaluate each watershed. Watersheds are grouped into four categories according to the evaluating. The result is helpful for decision makers to design a better reserve which is expected to minimize the influence of human beings.