Abstract:With the background of global change, ecological security has become an increasingly prominent issue and has been an important constraint to economic development and social stability. As serious problems in ecological security have increased, ecological security pattern is receiving widespread attention, particularly in the field of macroscopic ecology. Water security pattern is an important part of the ecological security pattern, and a complete understanding of the pattern would be useful in policymaking. It would also help in solving the problem of water security by providing spatial identification and protection. However, previous researches have not provided a clear definition of water security pattern, and this may be partly because of insufficient focus on it. Therefore, its theoretical basis, methodology, and assessment indicators are important factors that need to be explored further. A new approach is necessary to carry out an in-depth study that will be helpful for further enhancing the process of urbanization and protecting natural ecosystems in China. In this study, the similarities and differences between water security and related concepts such as water resource security, water environmental security, flood evasion security, and water ecological security were compared and analyzed. The results were then integrated with water security data from a multi-disciplinary perspective. Based on the comprehensive view, a fundamental concept of regional water security pattern was also defined. From a narrow point of view, it can be defined as the key landscape elements aiming to protect regional water security. From multidisciplinary and wide points of view, water security pattern construction can be defined as the regional landscape pattern optimization and optimal allocation of land resources. Regional water security pattern is concerned with ensuring a stable supply of regional water resources and maintaining the quality of the water environment, and at the same time, with avoiding disasters related to water to the greatest extent. The latest progress in development procedure and research methodology of water security pattern construction was systematically sorted, and the results indicated that the trend of research was changing from quantitative evaluation to spatial analysis. The focus on construction of water environmental security pattern was insufficient in previous studies. Moreover, there was an urgent requirement for analyzing relationships between water security pattern and social-economic-nature ecosystems. Therefore, supported by a spatial analysis and the InVEST model, a three-dimensional water security pattern, which included water resources security, water environmental security, and flood evasion security, was proposed. An integrated framework for regional water security pattern construction was also introduced on the basis of the three single dimensional water security patterns obtained from the multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) model. This new approach would be a great help to guarantee and promote China's water security in the process of urbanization.