Influence of Beijing Winter Olympic Games Construction on Vegetation Coverage around Zhangjiakou Competition Zone

Yuan Zhang, Zhongqi Xu and Jiabing Wu
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Yuan Zhang: Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China
Zhongqi Xu: College of Foresty, Hebei Agricultural University, Baoding 071001, China
Jiabing Wu: Key Laboratory of Forest Ecology and Management, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110016, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 23, 1-10

Abstract: There is a rising concern that Olympic venue construction may affect the surrounding environment. The construction of Winter Olympic venues and competition zones is more likely to degrade the surrounding natural environment than the summer counterpart, considering the prominent land use change and extensive vegetation disturbance during the construction of ski trails in mountainous areas. Scientific assessment of the impact of this Winter Olympic Games construction on the surrounding ecological environment can be of significance for the construction of a Green Olympics. At this stage, the main framework of venue and competition construction in Zhangjiakou for the Beijing Winter Olympic Games is essentially completed, so we assessed the vegetation coverage change conditions based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and the Enhanced Vegetation Index (EVI) from 2000 to 2020. Our results show that the construction of venues, roads, and other facilities for the 2022 Olympic Games led to a remarkable change in land use, but the impacts on vegetation coverage were negligible in the surrounding area. Due to the intensive reforestation activities since the year that Beijing won the race to host the Winter Olympics, vegetation coverage continued to increase in the Zhangjiakou area, even in the core area of Winter Olympic Games construction zones. This study provides support to the belief in hosting a Green Olympics.

Keywords: Winter Olympic Games; vegetation coverage changes; environmental disturbance (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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