Ecosystem change assessment in the Three-river Headwater Region, China: Patterns, causes, and implications

Jiang, Chong; Zhang, Linbo

doi:10.1016/j.ecoleng.2016.05.011

Cited by 70 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(69 reference statements)

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“…Such measures and programs include the restoration of degraded grassland project, the returning grazing land to grassland project, the ecological immigration project, the natural recovery of black soil type degraded grassland in the Three River Source Region and the construction of a rodent control and protection area, amounting to an investment of about 7.5×10 9 CNY. To determine whether these conservation measures and programs are effective on ecological protection and reconstruction, we divided the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau into two parts: (1) the Three-River Headwater conservation area (TRH zone) in the south (Jiang and Zhang, 2016), which refers to the source regions of the Yellow River, Lancang River and Yangtze River; and (2) the non-conservation area (NTRH zone) in the north ( Fig. 1).…”

Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring the impact of climate change and human activities on grassland vegetation dynamics in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China during 2000–2015

et al. 2019

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Section: Study Areamentioning

confidence: 99%

Monitoring the impact of climate change and human activities on grassland vegetation dynamics in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China during 2000–2015

et al. 2019

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“…The soil erosion by water in the TP has been estimated by several scientists, but these are mostly focused on catchment (Chaplot et al, 2005;Hren et al, 2007;Jiang and Zhang, 2016) or local scale (Pan et al, 2010;Wang et al, 2014;Xu et al, 2009).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Current and future assessments of soil erosion by water on the Tibetan Plateau based on RUSLE and CMIP5 climate models

Teng

Liang

Chen

et al. 2018

Science of The Total Environment

211

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Soil erosion by water is accelerated by a warming climate and negatively impacts water security and ecological conservation. The Tibetan Plateau (TP) has experienced warming at a rate approximately twice that observed globally, and heavy precipitation events lead to an increased risk of erosion. In this study, we assessed current erosion on the TP and predicted potential soil erosion by water in 2050. The study was conducted in three steps. During the first step, we used the Revised Universal Soil Equation (RUSLE), publicly available data, and the most recent earth observations to derive estimates of annual erosion from 2002 to 2016 on the TP at 1-km resolution. During the second step, we used a multiple linear regression (MLR) model and a set of climatic covariates to predict rainfall erosivity on the TP in 2050. The MLR was used to establish the relationship between current rainfall erosivity data and a set of current climatic and other covariates. The coefficients of the MLR were generalised with climate covariates for 2050 derived from the fifth phase of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP5) models to estimate rainfall erosivity in 2050. During the third step, soil erosion by water in 2050 was predicted using rainfall erosivity in 2050 and other erosion factors. The results show that the mean annual soil erosion rate on the TP under current conditions is 2.76thay, which is equivalent to an annual soil loss of 559.59×10t. Our 2050 projections suggested that erosion on the TP will increase to 3.17thay and 3.91thay under conditions represented by RCP2.6 and RCP8.5, respectively. The current assessment and future prediction of soil erosion by water on the TP should be valuable for environment protection and soil conservation in this unique region and elsewhere.

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“…The variability of terrestrial biophysical variables influences the function of ecosystem components, which is likely to alter terrestrial ecological processes [1]. As one of the largest Chinese nature reserves, the Three-River Headwaters Region (TRHR) has a relatively high altitude and severe climate conditions, which makes its ecosystem extremely sensitive and vulnerable [2]. In the last few decades, due to intensified climate change and uncontrolled development activities, several ecological issues, including the recession of glaciers and tundra, wetland shrinkage, and grassland desertification, have emerged over the TRHR, resulting in complex biophysical interactions and an irreversible effect on the ecosystem [3].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-Term Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Terrestrial Biophysical Variables in the Three-River Headwaters Region of China from Satellite and Meteorological Datasets

et al. 2019

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Terrestrial biophysical variables play an essential role in quantifying the amount of energy budget, water cycle, and carbon sink over the Three-River Headwaters Region of China (TRHR). However, direct field observations are missing in this region, and few studies have focused on the long-term spatiotemporal variations of terrestrial biophysical variables. In this study, we evaluated the spatiotemporal dynamics of biophysical variables including meteorological variables, vegetation, and evapotranspiration (ET) over the TRHR, and analyzed the response of vegetation and ET to climate change in the period from 1982 to 2015. The main input gridded datasets included meteorological reanalysis data, a satellite-based vegetation index dataset, and the ET product developed by a process-based Priestley–Taylor algorithm. Our results illustrate that: (1) The air temperature and precipitation over the TRHR increased by 0.597 °C and 41.1 mm per decade, respectively, while the relative humidity and surface downward shortwave radiation declined at a rate of 0.9% and 1.8 W/m2 per decade during the period 1982–2015, respectively. We also found that a ‘dryer warming’ tendency and a ‘wetter warming’ tendency existed in different areas of the TRHR. (2) Due to the predominant ‘wetter warming’ tendency characterized by the increasing temperature and precipitation, more than 56.8% of areas in the TRHR presented a significant increment in vegetation (0.0051/decade, p < 0.05), particularly in the northern and western meadow areas. When energy was the limiting factor for vegetation growth, temperature was a considerably more important driving factor than precipitation. (3) The annual ET of the TRHR increased by 3.34 mm/decade (p < 0.05) with an annual mean of 230.23 mm/year. More importantly, our analysis noted that ET was governed by terrestrial water supply, e.g., soil moisture and precipitation in the arid region of the western TRHR. By contrast, atmospheric evaporative demand derived by temperature and relative humidity was the primary controlling factor over the humid region of the southeastern TRHR. It was noted that land management activities, e.g., irrigation, also had a nonnegligible impact on the temporal and spatial variation of ET.

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Ecosystem change assessment in the Three-river Headwater Region, China: Patterns, causes, and implications

Cited by 70 publications

References 46 publications

Monitoring the impact of climate change and human activities on grassland vegetation dynamics in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China during 2000–2015

Monitoring the impact of climate change and human activities on grassland vegetation dynamics in the northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau of China during 2000–2015

Current and future assessments of soil erosion by water on the Tibetan Plateau based on RUSLE and CMIP5 climate models

Long-Term Spatiotemporal Dynamics of Terrestrial Biophysical Variables in the Three-River Headwaters Region of China from Satellite and Meteorological Datasets

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