Evaluation of the impact of climate change on the ecological resistance and ecological corridors based on set pair analysis theory

Climate change significantly impacts ecological resistance and ecological corridors. However, the difficulty in evaluating this impact lies in two crucial issues: (i) the uncertainty arising from spatial heterogeneity, and (ii) the diversity of impacts arising from this uncertainty. A set pair analysis (SPA) model is designed to assess the impact of climate change on ecological resistance and ecological corridors for addressing the aforementioned problems. First, the ecological resistance and corridors under different climate change scenarios are simulated. Then, the five-element connection number is used to reflect changes in ecological resistance and corridors influenced by climate change and uncertainty. Finally, the influence indices are constructed to quantify the three distinct impacts of climate change on them. The evaluation results for Jiangxi Province are as follows. (i) The province’s UR index values are 0.085, 0.127, 0.351, 0.501, and 0.468 under five climate change scenarios, respectively. The impact of climate change on ecological resistance is rapidly deteriorating, and the central region is the high-value center for future ecological resistance. (ii) The values of UC in the central and southern regions range from − 0.568 to − 0.320 and from − 0.816 to − 0.446, respectively. In the two regions, the assessments of the impact of climate change on ecological corridors are negative, which results in a reduction in connectivity. (iii) The crucial meteorological risks with the greatest impact on ecological resistance and corridors are floods and high-temperature disasters. (iv) The proposals for Jiangxi Province to address climate change are as follows: enhancing flood prevention, improving high-temperature monitoring, and establishing an ecological management system. (v) The SPA model can effectively assess the different impacts of climate change with spatial uncertainty on ecological resistance and corridors.