Planning and prioritizing forest landscape restoration within megacities using the ordered weighted averaging operator

Abstract Forest landscape restoration (FLR) is an efficient approach to address the challenge of megacities’ forest landscape degradation. However, a holistic FLR planning framework economically reconciling human development needs with the integrity of our environment is still lacking. Using the ordered weighted averaging operator, one of the multicriteria evaluation methods, integrated with geographic information system and participatory techniques, this study aims to explore the FLR planning and prioritizing issues for the Miyun Reservoir Catchment, the local strategic surface water source area of Beijing City. A set of planning frameworks was established to flexibly and visually plan the priority areas (subwatersheds) using aggregation operators for weighted biophysical and socioeconomic criteria. As such, a complete spectrum of alternative FLR plans represents the different tradeoffs among criteria and further indicates the complicated interactions between conservation and development objectives. The optimal FLR plans fully considering the local environmental challenges led by severe water crisis should focus more on conservation rather than development with the available resources. The resulting spatial distribution of priority subwatersheds suggests that future FLR activities should be extended more to upstream Hebei Province. Both the conservation plans and sensitivity analysis indicate that the biophysical criteria regarding catchment conservation, particularly the water purification service, should be further emphasized in future FLR planning. Finally, to better balance the objectives of conservation and development, local well-functioning markets of Payment for Ecosystem Services should be fostered step-by-step based on the view of natural capital to achieve the desired “win-win” outcomes.