Impacts of Ecological Migration on Land Use and Vegetation Restoration in Arid Zones

Wei Zhang, Liang Zhou, Yan Zhang, Zhijie Chen and Fengning Hu
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Wei Zhang: School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Liang Zhou: Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Yan Zhang: Institute of Ecological Civilization, Zhongnan University of Economics and Law, Wuhan 430073, China
Zhijie Chen: School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China
Fengning Hu: Faculty of Geomatics, Lanzhou Jiaotong University, Lanzhou 730070, China

Land, 2022, vol. 11, issue 6, 1-19

Abstract: Poverty and disasters are globally prevalent in ecologically fragile areas. Ecological migration is regarded as an effective way to address these issues. This paper investigates the spatial pattern of ecological migration and the corresponding spatiotemporal changes in land use and vegetation restoration in Gulang County, located in northwest China, between 2010 and 2018. For this purpose, we calculated three indicators: the transfer matrix of land use, normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), and vegetation restoration degree (VRD). We found that ecological migrants in Gulang County moved from the Qilian Mountain National Park to the intersection between flat area and desert. The spatial patterns ranged from high-altitude to low-altitude, and the slopes became less steep. The distribution of the resettlements is more clustered and shaped by the traffic conditions and guided by the local governments. Unused land in the whole-village migration area and construction land in the resettlement area were dramatically impacted by ecological migration (625% and 279.3%, respectively). The cropland and construction land in the outmigration areas were mainly replaced with grassland and forest. In contrast, the grassland and unused land in the resettlement area were transferred to cropland and construction land. After ecological migration, the mean NDVI and VRD in Gulang County significantly increased, indicating that the vegetation in the outmigration areas quickly recovered. Moreover, the VRD in the whole-township migration areas was greater than that in the whole-village migration areas (121% > 68%). The main contribution to the increase in NDVI was the conversion of forest to grassland, accounting for 33%. In addition, the transition from other types of land to grassland made a larger contribution to the NDVI than conversions to forest.

Keywords: ecological migration; land use; community planning; ecological protection; arid areas (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q15 Q2 Q24 Q28 Q5 R14 R52 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jlands:v:11:y:2022:i:6:p:891-:d:836698

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