Assessing the conservation effectiveness of national nature reserves in China

Establishing nature reserves (NRs) to protect habitats by selecting and reducing human activities (HA) is one of the measures to conserve biodiversity. Scientific assessment of the conservation effectiveness of NRs can provide useful references for managing NRs. However, further study is required to evaluate habitat quality (HQ) and HA and the response of HQ to HA in Chinese NRs to identify the conservation effectiveness of national NRs in China. To fill the gaps, this study attempted to evaluate the conservation effectiveness of NRs by analyzing the changes in HQ and HA and the response of HQ to HA. The results showed that the HQ improvement area was 53.494% during 1990–2020, and HQ rebounded by 0.332% after 2010. Moreover, HA positively impacted HQ in general, with heterogeneous categories. These findings suggest that the ecological conservation in the NRs are effective. Notably, HA's positive role in enhancing HQ continued to rise by 36.364%. Ecological transformation of HA in the NRs is the main reason. However, HA has adverse effects on HQ due to the HA diversity and the NRs vulnerability. This study contributes to the assessment of conservation effects and the development of better management plans for NRs.