Spatiotemporal Variations in Grassland Vulnerability on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Based on a Comprehensive Framework

Zhengyuan Zhao, Yunlong Zhang, Siqi Sun, Ting Li, Yihe Lü, Wei Jiang and Xing Wu
Additional contact information
Zhengyuan Zhao: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Yunlong Zhang: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Siqi Sun: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Ting Li: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Yihe Lü: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Wei Jiang: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
Xing Wu: State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China

Sustainability, 2022, vol. 14, issue 9, 1-17

Abstract: Grasslands are globally important for providing essential ecosystem services and maintaining ecological security. Monitoring and assessing grassland vulnerability are critical for developing long-term grassland management policies and strategies. The grassland vulnerability on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP) is considered high, but its spatial and temporal variations in response to human activities and climate change are not well understood. In this study, a comprehensive grassland vulnerability index (GVI), which includes natural factors (VNF), environmental disturbances (VED), and socioeconomic impacts (VSI), was developed by using the analytic hierarchy process (AHP), principal component analysis (PCA), and environmental vulnerability distance index (EVDI). Our results showed that the spatial distribution of GVI had obvious heterogeneity, decreasing from northwest to southeast; the regions with serious and extreme vulnerability were mainly concentrated in the north-western alpine steppe and desert steppe. From 2000 to 2018, GVI decreased from 0.61 in 2000 to 0.60 in 2010 and then to 0.59 in 2018, demonstrating a healthy tendency. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), land desertification, and population were the factors that had the most significant impact on VNF, VED, and VSI, respectively. The global Moran’s I index of grassland vulnerability was greater than 0, with a significant positive spatial correlation. The number of High-High and Low-Low units decreased, indicating that the High-High and Low-Low cluster regions tended to be discrete. Moreover, our results suggest that understanding the variations in grassland vulnerability on the QTP is important for regional sustainable development in the context of intensified climate change and human disturbances.

Keywords: grassland vulnerability; spatiotemporal variations; environmental vulnerability distance index; driving factors; Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/4912/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/14/9/4912/ (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:14:y:2022:i:9:p:4912-:d:797319

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 ().