Global urbanization has not only promoted social and economic progress, but also contributed to some serious ecological issues. As a type of sustainable landscape patterns, ecological security pattern (ESP) consists of key points, lines and surface elements that play a role in preserving ecosystem integrity and the sustainable supply of ecosystem services. Hence, ESPs are considered as effective spatial pathways to simultaneously conserve biodiversity and maintain regional ecological security. However, the fragmentation of ecological sources within ESPs has not been effectively addressed and continues to draw the attention of scholars. In this study, we used spatial conservation prioritization (SCP) to identify the ESP of the city belt along the Yellow River in Ningxia, China. Ecological sources were identified by applying a Zonation model while ecological corridors and key ecological nodes were identified by applying a circuit model. The results show that the ESP was composed of 97 ecological sources, 226 ecological corridors, 267 pinch points and 22 barriers, covering a total area of 7700 km2 and accounting for 34% of the study area. Landscape connectivity of ecological sources identified through Zonation-based SCP is better as compared with the ESI-based scoring approach. Particularly, the landscape connectivity increased up to 44% while the average patch area increased with 28% when considering the same total area. The SCP approach we proposed in this paper provides a new effective tool to construct ecological security pattern, which is conducive to the synergic enhancement of landscape connectivity and ecosystem services conservation effectiveness.