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Arid Land Geography ›› 2021, Vol. 44 ›› Issue (1): 188-196.doi: 10.12118/j.issn.1000–6060.2021.01.20

• Earth Information Sciences • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Spatio-temporal evolution and attribution analysis of human effects of vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau from 2001 to 2018

ZHANG Chong1(),BAI Ziyi1,LI Xuemei3(),RAN Qiqi1,WEI Zhenfeng4,LEI Tianwang5,WANG Na6   

  1. 1. Shaanxi Key Laboratory of Disaster Monitoring and Mechanism Modeling,Baoji University of Arts and Sciences, Baoji 721013,Shaanxi, China
    2. School of Geography and Tourism, Shaanxi Normal University, Xi’an 710119, Shaanxi, China
    3. College of Geography and Tourism, Chongqing Key Laboratory of GIS Application, Chongqing Normal University, Chongqing 400047, China
    4. Guangxi Yicheng Blueprint Technology Co., Ltd., Nanning 530007, Guangxi, China
    5. School of civil Engineering, Xi’an Institute of Transportation Engineering, Xi’an 710065, Shaanxi, China
    6. Shaanxi Climate Center, Xi’an 710015, Shaanxi, China
  • Received:2019-12-08 Revised:2020-08-04 Online:2021-01-25 Published:2021-03-09
  • Contact: Xuemei LI E-mail:zhangch3348@126.com;xuemeili@cqnu.edu.cn

Abstract:

The Loess Plateau is one of the four major plateaus in China. It is the most concentrated and largest Loess area on earth, but fragile ecology, which feeds 8.5% of China’s population with 6.7% of the land. The long-term population and economic development pressure have caused severe regional ecosystem degradation. Since the implementation of the project of returning farmland to forest and grassland in 1999, the vegetation construction acceleration has led to significant improvements in the ecological environment. However, the man-made factors and the influence rules of vegetation cover changes on the Loess Plateau still lack several quantitative demonstrations. Therefore, strengthening the quantitative analysis of the human impact on the regional ecological environment will not only promote accurate ecological restoration, but also promotes the construction of human stability, harmony, and happy life, which has important theoretical and practical significance. Based on the MODIS-NDVI and MODIS-LST from 2001 to 2018, as well as various humanistic and social data, such as land use, transportation, and population, this paper constructs the Temperature Vegetation Dryness Index (TVDI) to reflect the soil moisture status of the Loess Plateau. The residual method is used to remove soil moisture to express the manmade influence of vegetation cover. The spatiotemporal evolution pattern of the man-made influence is analyzed with trend analysis and the Hurst index. We tend to explore the effect degree of various human factors, influence direction, and their temporal changes on vegetation coverage with geographic detectors and correlation analysis methods on the Loess Plateau. It is hoped to determine the man-made leading factors affecting the vegetation cover changes on the Loess Plateau, and provide a solid basis for the maintenance of the early ecological construction project and the future implementation of farmland to forest project, which will contribute to the healthy and sustainable development of the ecological environment of the Loess Plateau. The results are as follows: (1) The anthropogenic influence of vegetation cover on the Loess Plateau from 2001 to 2018 has a trend of 0.36×10-2 a-1, and the impact of human activities on vegetation cover was positive. (2) The future trend of human impact on vegetation cover will change from positive to negative on the Loess Plateau. It is worth noting that the positive effect of vegetation cover will weaken in the key implementation areas of returning farmland to forest. (3) According to the results of correlation analysis and geographical detector, the main human factors affecting vegetation cover change include high-level tourist attractions, urban distribution, transportation, and land use. (4) The future implementation and maintenance of the returning farmland to forest project should pay attention to reinforce ecological construction at the same time as urban economic development, reduce the harm of traffic industry to the ecological environment, strengthen the development of green tourism and slow down the impact of human activities, such as land change.

Key words: human effects of vegetation cover, temperature vegetation dryness index, residual method, geodetector, Loess Plateau