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Arid Land Geography ›› 2022, Vol. 45 ›› Issue (4): 1186-1199.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000-6060.2021.507

• Earth Information Sciences • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Effects of climate change and human activities on net primary productivity of vegetation in Yanchi County

LI Shiyao1(),CONG Shixiang1,WANG Rongrong1,YU Hailong1(),HUANG Juying2   

  1. 1. School of Geography and Planning, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia, China
    2. School of Ecology and Environment, Ningxia University, Yinchuan 750021, Ningxia, China
  • Received:2021-11-01 Revised:2021-12-25 Online:2022-07-25 Published:2022-08-11
  • Contact: Hailong YU E-mail:nxulsy@163.com;yhl@nxu.edu.cn

Abstract:

This study aims to quantitatively differentiate the relative contribution rate of climate change and human activities during the vegetation cover change in the typical agricultural pastoral ecotone of Northern China under the background of the “grain to green project”. Taking vegetation change from 2000 to 2020 in the Yanchi County, Ningxia Province as the study object and using MODIS13Q1-NDVI, land cover data, and meteorological data from 2000 to 2020, the annual potential net primary productivity and actual net primary productivity were simulated using the models of Thornthwaite Memorial and Carnegie Ames Stanford Approach. The spatial and temporal change characteristics of the net primary productivity (NPP) in the Yanchi County and its driving force were analyzed, and the relative contribution rates of meteorological factors and human activities in the process of vegetation cover change were quantitatively calculated using trend analysis, correlation analysis, and difference comparison. The results showed the following: (1) The NPP totally presented an increasing trend, but there was an obvious spatial heterogeneity in the NPP change trend and degree, mainly manifested when the vegetation NPPs of the improved areas were far greater than the those of the degraded areas, and the extents of improvement and degradation showed significant spatial heterogeneity. The vegetation-improved areas were mainly distributed in the desert and desert steppe (where the “grain to green project” was conducted) and in irrigated areas, whereas the vegetation-degraded areas were mainly distributed in the edge zones of the desert and desert steppe. (2) The vegetation change attribution analysis results indicated that in the vegetation-improved areas, the relative contribution rate of climate change (59.77%) was higher than that of human activities (40.23%). Meanwhile, in the vegetation-degraded areas, the relative contribution rate of human activities (91.77%) was higher than that of climate change (8.23%). (3) The driving force analysis results indicated that the vegetation NPP was positively correlated with precipitation but weakly correlated with temperature. Human activities were the main driving force that drove the NPP decrease in the vegetation-degraded areas. In summary, climate change was the main driving force that drove the NPP improvement in the vegetation-improved areas, whereas human activities were the main driving factors that led to the NPP decrease in the vegetation-degraded areas. Climate and human activities jointly dominated the improvement of the total ecological environment in the Yanchi County.

Key words: net primary productivity (NPP), desert steppe, vegetation change, driving force, Yanchi County