Comprehensive Evaluation of Island Habitat Quality Based on the Invest Model and Terrain Diversity: A Case Study of Haitan Island, China

Abstract

The assessment of habitat quality is instrumental in preserving regional species diversity and ecosystem health, thereby forming the theoretical foundation for sustainable urban development. While the Invest model is a commonly employed tool for habitat quality evaluation, it fails to consider the terrain. This study, centered on Haitan Island, introduces the terrain diversity index to rectify the Invest model’s lack of terrain evaluation. The terrain diversity index, encompassing indices for terrain slope, undulation, and humidity, combined with the Invest model, was applied for a comprehensive assessment of the study area’s habitat quality. Furthermore, the distribution characteristics of habitat quality on Haitan Island, China, were examined using Moran’s I and LISA indices. The research indicates that forest land is the primary land cover type on Haitan Island, with blue-green space comprising forests, farmland, water bodies, and grassland, making up 66.8% of the island’s area, thus implying a positive overall ecological base. Habitat quality distribution within the study area displays spatial heterogeneity, with regions of superior habitat quality primarily found in the northeast areas such as Junshan. Compared to the standalone Invest model, the combined method considering terrain and vegetation cover types yields a more sensitive impact on habitat quality evaluation and improves the precision of identifying superior habitat quality by 56.7%. Spatial autocorrelation analysis revealed that the comprehensive habitat quality index in the study area exhibited clustered distribution. Hotspots were mainly identified in areas like Junshan and the western mangrove wetland, regions with a high concentration of habitat quality values, while low-value clusters were mostly found in the central city and southwestern plains. This study offers a novel methodology for habitat quality evaluation, compensating for the traditional Invest model’s neglect of terrain factors, and enriching the research on island habitat quality. It can provide fresh approaches and references for future habitat-related studies.