Impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland vegetation variation in the Chinese Loess Plateau

Zheng, Kai; Wei, Jian-Zhou; Pei, Jiu-Ying; Cheng, Hua; Zhang, Xulong; Huang, Fu‐Qiang; Li, Feng Min; Ye, Jian‐Sheng

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2019.01.022

Cited by 266 publications

(142 citation statements)

References 47 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

103

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…Growing evidence suggested that the vegetation in the Loess Plateau has increased after the implementation of the GFG Program [3,78]. Our study revealed that the increase in urbanization rate is the underlying and dominant factor driving the increase of grassland vegetation in the Loess Plateau.…”

Section: The Response Mechanisms Of Grassland Vegetation Dynamics To mentioning

confidence: 55%

Migration of Rural Residents to Urban Areas Drives Grassland Vegetation Increase in China’s Loess Plateau

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Human activities are critical factors influencing ecosystem sustainability. However, knowledge on regarding the mechanisms underlying the response of vegetation dynamics to human activities remains limited. To detect the driving factors and their individual contribution to the grassland vegetation dynamics in China’s Loess Plateau, a structural equation model (SEM) and a principal component regression model were built. The SEM showed that population change and urbanization, temperature and humidity, and agriculture and economy accounted for 62.5%, 31.2%, and 7.7%, respectively, of the overall impact directly affecting grassland vegetation dynamics. Furthermore, the principal component regression model demonstrated that the effects of the urbanization rate on the grassland above-ground biomass exceeded those of the other factors. The agriculture population had the maximum negative effect on grassland area. The higher the urbanization rate means the higher the number of residents migrates from rural to urban areas. Following this argument, the disturbances of human activities to grassland vegetation were expected to gradually decrease in rural areas, where the vast majority of the Loess Plateau is located. The migration of rural residents to urban areas promoted the increase in biomass and areas of grassland vegetation. Our findings suggest that the effect of urbanization should be considered when assessing vegetation change.

show abstract

Section: The Response Mechanisms Of Grassland Vegetation Dynamics To mentioning

confidence: 55%

Migration of Rural Residents to Urban Areas Drives Grassland Vegetation Increase in China’s Loess Plateau

et al. 2019

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…The area of Inner Mongolia grassland had a net increase of 77,993 km 2 during 2001-2009 [70]. Compared with the period of 2000 to 2007, the mean normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) increased by 14.16% in the period from 2009 to 2016 in grassland of the Loess Plateau [37]. Through a meta-analysis, the amount of carbon stored in aboveground biomass increased by 84.7% under grazing exclusion measures [68].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Thus, the FLUS model can effectively simulate the land use dynamics under different scenarios and further explore the possible causes and consequences of LULCC. However, given that the influence of natural background change on LULCC is perpetual and underlying, it is challenging to separate the role of supplementary ecological policies from that of potential natural background [12,37].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantitatively Assessing and Attributing Land Use and Land Cover Changes on China’s Loess Plateau

Zhao

Liang

et al. 2020

Remote Sensing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The global land surface cover is undergoing extensive changes in the context of global change, especially in the Loess Plateau, where ecological restoration policies have been vigorously implemented since 2000. Evaluating the impact of these policies on land cover is of great significance for regional sustainable development. Nonetheless, there are few quantitative assessment studies of the impact of ecological restoration policies on land use and land cover change (LULCC). In this study, a relative contribution conceptual model (RCCM) was used to explore the contribution of the policies to LULCC under the influence of natural background change, which was based on the Markov chain and the future land use simulation (FLUS) model. The results show that LULCC is influenced by ecological restoration policies and the natural environment, of which the policies contribute about 72.37% and natural change contribute about 27.63%. Ecological restoration policies have a profound impact on LULCC, changing the original direction of LULCC greatly. Additionally, these policies regulate the pattern of LULCC by controlling the amount of cropland as a rebalanced leverage. These findings provide useful information for facilitating sustainable ecological development in the Loess Plateau and theoretically supporting environmental decision-making.

show abstract

“…Understanding the influences of climate extremes and human factors on vegetation states is critical, as such factors have distinct direct impacts that threaten the ecosystem [9,11,18,19]. However, there have been few attempts to elucidate such multiple causal impacts and their pathways [48]; thus, limited information is available on the relationship between vegetation health and various climate and human factors.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…As for the human impact on vegetation, biophysical and biogeochemical impacts caused by land conversion (LC) are definite and emphasize their negative influence on vegetation [15]. However, comprehensive assessments that consider both driving forces are limited [16], although several attempts have been made for Central Asia [9] and China, including the Loess plateau [8,[17][18][19]. Therefore, there is a need to enhance our understanding of these two direct hazards in order to promote sustainable vegetation growth.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Critical Impact Path on Vegetation Growth under Climate Extremes and Human Influence

Kim

Song

Lee

2019

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Reduced vegetation growth ultimately induces degradation of the ecosystem and CO 2 sequestration. Multiple risks can affect vegetation, but climate change and human influence have been particularly known to be major risks for deteriorating the ecosystem. However, there is limited information illustrating comprehensive impact pathways that consider both climatic and human impacts on vegetation. To promote optimum decision-making, information is required to elucidate complex cause-and-effect pathways in order to determine how various impacts are related and which ones are more important. Hence, we identified impact pathways affecting enhanced vegetation index (EVI) regarding climate and human factors by revealing a causal network using the Bayesian network approach. Vulnerable vegetation types and the spatial range of impact were evaluated based on the identified network by analyzing temporal changes in annual average EVI, human-induced land conversion, and multiple climate extremes from 2002 to 2014 on Jeju Island, South Korea. The results indicated the high vulnerability of coniferous forests compared with mixed and deciduous forests were able to elucidate the major impact paths, including human-induced land conversion at lower elevation, length of frost, degree of heat, and general intensity of wetness (Pearson's r = 0.58). Existing policies in the study site have been insufficient to avoid the major paths influencing vegetation state. This study offers insights into comprehensive impact paths in order to support effective decision-making for nature conservation.

show abstract

Impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland vegetation variation in the Chinese Loess Plateau

Cited by 266 publications

References 47 publications

Migration of Rural Residents to Urban Areas Drives Grassland Vegetation Increase in China’s Loess Plateau

Migration of Rural Residents to Urban Areas Drives Grassland Vegetation Increase in China’s Loess Plateau

Quantitatively Assessing and Attributing Land Use and Land Cover Changes on China’s Loess Plateau

Understanding the Critical Impact Path on Vegetation Growth under Climate Extremes and Human Influence

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About