The Spatiotemporal Evolution and Driving Factors of Ecological Security Across Different Karst Landforms in Southern China

ABSTRACT Ecological security (ES) is essential for regional sustainable development. The Southern China Karst (SCK), characterized by fragile ecosystems and intense human‐land conflicts, plays a vital role in maintaining national ecological barriers and regional ecological balance. However, existing studies mainly focus on the entire region or single landform types, often neglecting heterogeneity among karst geomorphological types. This study integrates ecosystem structure, quality, and services to assess ES, and applies a partial least squares structural equation model (PLS‐SEM) to identify influencing factors across different karst landform types in the SCK. The results show that: (1) ES exhibits a spatial pattern of higher levels in the south and lower levels in the north, with 92.19% of counties improving from 2000 to 2020. (2) Topographic and climatic factors positively influence ES in high‐altitude areas, whereas human activities generally exert negative effects. Land‐use structure is the dominant factor affecting ES in the SCK. (3) Ecosystem quality (0.524) and ecosystem services (0.573) provide the strongest and most stable direct contributions to ES. (4) Karst desertification control achieved significant results, reducing the proportion of moderate‐to‐severe rocky desertification from 54.78% in 2000 to 29.64% in 2020, thereby substantially improving regional ES.