Abstract:Ecological patches provide places for the survival and development of species. Urbanization processes have led to a sharp area decline of ecological patches and severe fragmentation, which seriously threaten ecosystem services. Ecological patch importance assessment can help identify the key regions of maintaining landscape connectivity. It is an effective way to achieve efficient ecological protection and hierarchical management. Based on network modeling and topological indicators, and combined with TOPSIS and ordered sample clustering, we evaluated and ranked the ecological patch importance in Sichuan Province in 2015 from the perspective of landscape connectivity. The results show that the ecological patches in Sichuan Province were relatively continuous in the northwest, while they were scattered and sparse in the south and east. The comprehensive assessment method can effectively rank patch importance and patches can be divided into five importance levels. The high-level ecological patches were mainly located at core area, while low-level patches were distributed at the edge of the province. We proposed corresponding planning suggestions according to the characteristics of ecological patches at different levels, aiming at guiding local ecological planning from a holistic perspective. The results provide references for the optimization of metapopulation protection at a provincial scale with limited resources.