An Assessment Framework for Grassland Ecosystem Health with Consideration of Natural Succession: A Case Study in Bayinxile, China

Nitu Wu, Aijun Liu, Yongfang Wang, Lanhua Li, Lumengqiqige Chao and Guixiang Liu
Additional contact information
Nitu Wu: Grassland Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot 010010, China
Aijun Liu: Grassland Investigation and Planning Institute of Inner Mongolia, Hohhot 010051, China
Yongfang Wang: Grassland Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot 010010, China
Lanhua Li: Grassland Investigation and Planning Institute of Inner Mongolia, Hohhot 010051, China
Lumengqiqige Chao: Grassland Investigation and Planning Institute of Inner Mongolia, Hohhot 010051, China
Guixiang Liu: Grassland Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, Hohhot 010010, China

Sustainability, 2019, vol. 11, issue 4, 1-17

Abstract: Grassland health assessment is the basis for formulating grassland protection policy. However, there are few assessment methods that consider the angle of natural succession for northern China’s regional native grassland with excessive human activities. The main purpose of this study is to build an assessment system for these areas from the perspective of natural succession. Besides, the minimal cumulative resistance (MCR) model was used to extract potential ecological information from the study area as a supplementary reference for the assessment results. The result for Bayinxile pasture, a typical semiarid steppe with excessive human activities located in northern China, showed that: (1) The ecological function of eastern hilly area was better than that of other regions and the western area was lowest as a whole. (2) The river was the most important ecological network in the whole grassland in that it was of vital significance in the prevention of retrogressive succession and in the linking of ecological communities. (3) The density of ecological network was closely related to the intensity of human activities, and farmland and roads had great negative influence on the connection of the grassland ecological network. We further proposed an ecological control zone and made suggestions for Bayinxile ecological management to prevent grassland degradation based on the above results. This study should provide a new perspective for grassland health assessment and sustainable development of regional grassland.

Keywords: ecosystem health; grassland; MCR model; ecological corridor; remote sensing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1096/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/11/4/1096/ (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:11:y:2019:i:4:p:1096-:d:207361

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 ().