Response of Vegetation Dynamics in the Three-North Region of China to Climate and Human Activities from 1982 to 2018

Weijia Liang, Quan Quan (), Bohua Wu and Shuhong Mo
Additional contact information
Weijia Liang: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Quan Quan: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Bohua Wu: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China
Shuhong Mo: State Key Laboratory of Eco-Hydraulics in Northwest Arid Region, Xi’an University of Technology, Xi’an 710048, China

Sustainability, 2023, vol. 15, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: To tackle ecological problems, many ecological restoration projects have been implemented in northern China. Identifying the drivers of vegetation change is critical for continued ecological engineering. In this study, three typical ecological reserves in the Three-North Shelter Forest Program Region (TNSFR) were selected to identify their vegetation development characteristics and driving mechanisms using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), climate factors, and land use data. The results show that (1) NDVIs increased in the range of human activities of all of the three ecological reserves, indicating an obvious effect of the vegetation restoration projects. (2) In the planting period, vegetation restoration was mainly correlated with human activities. After entering the tending period, the impact of climate changes on vegetation dynamics was enhanced. (3) Temperature and precipitation provided approximate driving effects on vegetation dynamics in Region I, while vegetation dynamics in Regions II and III were more strongly correlated with precipitation. (4) The proportion of areas with ecological measures exceeded 50% in all three regions. In short, ecological projects in the three ecological reserves dominated the quantity of vegetation restoration, while climate changes influenced the quality of vegetation restoration.

Keywords: vegetation dynamics; climate factors; human intervention; national key ecology project; ecological restoration (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3073/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/4/3073/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:4:p:3073-:d:1061570

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().