Background Due to complex terrain, severe human-land conflicts, landscape fragmentation, and inappropriate forest stand structures, the ecological barrier area of the Three Gorges Reservoir Area (TGRA) is facing a series of ecological problems, such as lower stability of ecosystems but higher ecological risks. Although some restoration measures have been applied, simple vegetation restoration and excessive human intervention still affect the effectiveness of the process.

Methods Focusing on the mechanisms of ecosystem stability and function enhancement, the interplay between the stand structure of artificial shelterbelts and their soil-water conservation functions, the synergistic coordination of water-nutrient regulation and production capacity in specialty economic forests, as well as the integrated landscape regulation for erosion control and pollution mitigation in ecological buffer zones, this research selected Zigui, Xingshan, Yunyang, and Zhongxian as typical demonstration areas, and applied the laboratory simulation, field test, location monitoring, and integrated demonstration simulations to develop the near natural ecological restoration techniques for ecological barrier area of TGRA.

Results 1) Identified the limiting factors for soil and water conservation in artificial shelter forests, and developed near-natural forest structure renovation techniques, including broadleaf tree transformation, understory vegetation restoration, and root restructuring. 2) Clarified the characteristics of microhabitats and vegetation succession in rocky mountainous ecosystems, and developed techniques for microhabitat regulation and mixed forest silviculture across three succession stages: seedling transplantation, open shrubland formation, and degraded plantation recovery. 3) Focused on the dynamic relationship between soil water and nutrients of specialty economic forests, investigated soil improvement technologies for economic forests, exploring production-ecology synergy patterns through living grass mulching and the integration of water and fertilizer. 4) Studied the response of runoff, sediment, and nutrients to landscape patterns in ecological buffer zones, developing multi-landscape optimization technologies for establishing native vegetation communities and spatial configurations aimed at erosion control and pollution reduction, incorporating ecological ditches, multi-stage ponds, and vegetative buffer strips. 5) Clarified the formation mechanism of ecological risk and identified the core ecological restoration area of the ecological barrier areas. Established a multi-scale (slope-small watershed-regional) near-natural ecological restoration and ecological security assurance technology system for ecological barrier zones, integrating knowledge graphs of restoration technologies and digital virtual simulations of ecological landscapes.

Conclusions The developed near-natural ecological restoration techniques could produce adaptive strategies for ecological conservation and restoration and key technical patterns of ecological security guarantee for the ecological barrier zones and provide significant support for improving ecological function and promoting sustainable regional development in the TGRA.