Background Ecological restoration is an important guarantee to maintain national ecological security. Scientific and reasonable identification of key ecological restoration areas is a difficult issue in current territorial spatial planning, and this study took Haicheng city of Liaoning province as an example while combined GIS and remote sensing technology, the key areas of ecological restoration in Haicheng were identified and specific restoration measures were proposed, aiming to strengthen the construction of ecological security and soil and water conservation and other related control measures in Haicheng again.

Methods Under the guidance of the idea of overall protection and system governance, based on the connectivity of ecological landscape and supported by the paradigm of "source selection-corridor identification-node determination". and comprehensive use of MSPA landscape pattern analysis, the habitat quality assessment and nature reserves was to select ecological sources, and circuit theory and MCR model were used to identify ecological corridors, build a regional ecological security pattern, and finally determine the spatial distribution of key areas of ecological restoration in Haicheng, including ecological pinch points to be repaired, ecological barrier points to be repaired, ecological breaking points to be repaired and broken ecological land.

Results 1) The ecological source area of Haicheng is 486.89 km², which is mainly woodland and water area, and the ecological corridors between sources are mainly river patterns, and 73 ecological corridors between sources are identified, with a total length of 394.81 km. 2) Based on the ecological security pattern to identify the key areas of ecological restoration in Haicheng city, 29 ecological pinch points with a total length of 71.63 km, 16 ecological barrier points with an area of 39.70 km², 34 ecological breaking points and a total 40.78 km² of broken ecological land to be repaired are identified. 3) Based on the analysis of the spatial distribution characteristics and land use status of all kinds of ecological protection and restoration key areas, the specific restoration and promotion directions are put forward: For the identified river-type ecological corridors, river pollution prevention and control should be strengthened, i.e., establishing river real-time monitoring mechanism, protecting and conserving water sources, and ensuring the normal flow of species. Having the mountain ridge ecological corridor strengthens the soil erosion control, protects and improves the ridge soil function and so on. For the control measures of ecological pinch points, ecological barrier points and ecological breaking points, the environmental protection of each ecological key area should be enhanced, the ecological resistance faced by the species flow should be reduced, and thus the balance of the ecosystem in the region may be ensured. The low-quality ecological areas corresponding to the broken ecological space should have the construction of ecological protection enhanced.

Conclusions The research paradigm of "source selection-corridor identification-node determination" is used to obtain the priority areas for ecological restoration in the city of Haicheng and to propose targeted restoration suggestions.