Structural Transformation of Ecological Spatial Legislation for Protected Areas Under Digital-Intelligence Integration

In 2026, the National Park Law came into effect, the revised Regulations on Nature Reserves were implemented, and the Ecological and Environmental Code completed the systematic integration of protected areas, promoting a shift in protected-area governance from element-based regulation to ecological spatial system regulation. Focusing on normative conflicts and operational linkages under this institutional change, this study analyzes the "zoning–inventory–liability" normative structure and its operational logic, and, based on typical cases released by the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate as well as public judgments, develops typified samples to construct an analytical framework for three categories of disputes: physical encroachment damage, exit-compensation conflicts, and register-overlap damage. The findings indicate that the core constraint in protected-area governance does not lie in insufficient normative supply, but in the absence of stable coordination mechanisms among norms. Data–intelligence integration is not a merely technical insertion; rather, it enters the process of norm implementation through monitoring and early warning, data collection and evidence generation, thereby transforming data elements into an institutional basis for legal proof and liability determination. On this basis, the governance effectiveness of typified prohibitions is shown to depend on the configuration of capacities in three dimensions of the regulatory system: identification, evidence consolidation, and enforcement. Building on the above analysis, the study proposes a "space–data–intelligence–liability" intersecting operational model and argues for reconstructing the liability-closure mechanism through advancing the evidentiary chain and strengthening procedural linkages.