Arid Zone Research ›› 2024, Vol. 41 ›› Issue (10): 1740-1752.doi: 10.13866/j.azr.2024.10.12

• Plant Ecology • Previous Articles     Next Articles

Study on the characteristics of changes in vegetation cover and its driving forces in the Three-North Shelterbelt program regions: Taking Ningxia as example

QI Ronglian1(), LI Qingbo1(), REN Jia1, ZOU Miao1, YANG Haopeng1, WEI Yaofeng1, TANG Qiong2   

  1. 1. Ningxia Forestry Investigation and Planning Institute, Yinchuan 750010, Ningxia, China
    2. Workstation of Alxa Right Banner Forestry and Grassland, Alxa League 737300, Inner Mongolia, China
  • Received:2024-03-22 Revised:2024-05-10 Online:2024-10-15 Published:2024-10-14
  • Contact: LI Qingbo E-mail:qrl199602@163.com;87270953@qq.com

Abstract:

Ningxia as the only province whose entire territory is included in the “Three-North project,” has an extremely important ecological location. This study investigated the temporal-spatial variation in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and quantified the impact of climate variations (CV) and human activities (HA) on NDVI based on various datasets (e.g., NDVI and meteorological dataset) and methods(e.g., trend analysis and residual trend analysis). The trend of future NDVI in the Ningxia was also determined using the Hurst index. Results demonstrated that (1) NDVI fluctuated, showing an increase at a rate of 7.6×10-3 a-1 during the study period. The spatial distribution of NDVI was heterogeneous, showing the characteristics of “Yellow River diversion irrigation area and southern mountainous area high and central-arid zone low.” NDVI in the Ningxia generally belonged to low-level vegetation cover (0.2<NDVI≤0.4) with a proportion of >50%. (2) NDVI exhibited an overall increasing trend across 94.94% of the total Ningxia from 2001 to 2020. Furthermore, 65.23% of vegetation of the study area in the future may be at potential risk of degradation. (3) Both CV and HA exerted a positive effect on the amelioration of NDVI, and increases in NDVI in 89.49% of the total Ningxia were controlled by the interactive effect of CV and HA. Among the climate factors, precipitation played a major role in promoting the change of NDVI. (4) The relative contribution rates of CV and HA to changes in NDVI were 43.79% and 56.21%, respectively. Overall, in future programs on vegetation restoration and ecological construction, the primary role of human activities in increasing vegetation cover should be actively exploited, and monitoring and management of the existing vegetation should be strengthened to avoid its degradation trend.

Key words: changes in vegetation cover, climate variations, human activities, driving forces, Ningxia