When and where did the Loess Plateau turn “green”? Analysis of the tendency and breakpoints of the normalized difference vegetation index

Cao, Zhi; Li, Yurui; Liu, Yansui; Chen, Yu-Fu; Wang, Yongsheng

doi:10.1002/ldr.2852

Cited by 119 publications

(64 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…This serious land degradation and desertification caused by soil and water loss has caused increasingly severe environmental and socioeconomic problems for the CLP region [26]. To prevent the negative effects of an excessively degraded environment, the Chinese government implemented large-scale conservation plans-including the Shelterbelt program, slope stability improvement programs, the joint governance of gullies and slopes, comprehensive management of small watersheds, and the Great Green Program (GGP)-beginning in 2000 [33]. However, the impact of these large-scale conservation programs on the regional ecosystem is still unclear [2], and no precise information will be available until a quantitative evaluation is made of the environmental quality before and after their implementation.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of Ecological Security in the Tableland Region of the Chinese Loess Plateau Using a Remote-Sensing-Based Index

Sun

Zhang

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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Maintaining optimal ecological security is a serious issue in the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP). Remote sensing ecological indexes (RSEI) of three main tableland regions of the CLP were calculated based on spectral information provided by remote sensing imaging satellites between 2000 and 2018. We were able to use RSEI values to systematically evaluate the temporal and spatial variation in the regional ecological environment and determine the influential factors that mainly associated with these changes. The results showed that between 2000 and 2018, the ecological environment improved, remained stable, and deteriorated, respectively, in the Gansu, Shaanxi, and Shanxi tablelands. Regions with poor or fair RSEIs were concentrated around the main river basins, while regions with moderate RSEIs were associated with poor ecological conditions and poor areas. The significant spatiotemporal variation in RSEI indicates that the ecological system in this region is relatively fragile. We also observed that natural factors such as the temperature, potential evapotranspiration, and precipitation had the greatest influence on the overall ecological quality. The rapid increase in the regional population and human activity played an important role in the variation in the regional RSEI. This research will provide important information on controlling regional soil erosion and ecological restoration in the CLP.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Evolution of Ecological Security in the Tableland Region of the Chinese Loess Plateau Using a Remote-Sensing-Based Index

Sun

Zhang

et al. 2020

Sustainability

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“…Increased vegetation cover plays the primary role in decreased soil erosion and increased evapotranspiration [8,11]. Similar to most regions of the world, vegetation greening trends are widely observed in the Loess Plateau over the past decade [17][18][19]. Earlier studies report that climate change, land management, carbon dioxide concentration increase, and dry and wet atmospheric depositions of nitrogen are regarded as the main reasons of vegetation greening trends at the global and regional scales [18][19][20].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In recent years, vegetation cover change in the Loess Plateau has attracted high attention, especially within the ecological and remote sensing communities [8,17,18,29,30]. Many previous studies have focused on the biological and hydrological effects of vegetation cover change [8,30,31].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does Anthropogenic Land Use Change Play a Role in Changes of Precipitation Frequency and Intensity over the Loess Plateau of China?

Liu

2018

Remote Sensing

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Human transformation of landscapes is pervasive and accelerating across the Earth. However, existing studies have not provided a comprehensive picture of how precipitation frequency and intensity respond to vegetation cover change. Therefore, this study took the Loess Plateau as a typical example, and used satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data and daily gridded climatic variables to assess the responses of precipitation dynamics to human-induced vegetation cover change. Results showed that the total precipitation amount exhibited little change at the regional scale, showing an upward but statistically insignificant (p > 0.05) trend of 7.6 mm/decade in the period 1982–2015. However, the frequency of precipitation with different intensities showed large variations over most of the Loess Plateau. The number of rainy days (light, moderate, heavy, very heavy and severe precipitation) increased in response to increased vegetation cover, especially in the central-eastern Loess Plateau. Anthropogenic land cover change is largely responsible for precipitation intensity changes. Additionally, this study also observed high spatially explicit heterogeneity in different precipitation intensities in response to vegetation cover change across the Loess Plateau. These findings provide some reference information for our understanding of precipitation frequency and intensity changes in response to regional vegetation cover change in the Loess Plateau.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Besides, the Loess Plateau has the most severe soil erosion problem in China (McVicar et al, 2007;Liu et al, 2015;Cao et al, 2018). To control it, a series of soil and water conservation measures have been implemented, including slope improvement, management of gullies and small catchments (Cao et al, 2018). As a typical arid and semi-arid catchment in the Loess Plateau in China, Zuli River Basin (ZRB) has experienced severe soil erosion (Yao and Liu, 2018) and complex change in both vegetation cover and hydrologic processes in the past century due to climate change and complex human interpretation (Huang et al, 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Long-term vegetation change and its driving factors in a typical catchment of the Loess Plateau

2019

El Sawah, S. (Ed.) MODSIM2019, 23rd International Congress on Modelling and Simulation.

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Vegetation information is critical for understanding terrestrial water and carbon dynamics, and is a key factor for regional environment management under climate change. This study selected a typical arid and semi-arid catchment, in the Loess Plateau, the Zuli River Basin (ZRB) to investigate the long-term vegetation cover change and its driving factors. Different from available Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) products that were produced at coarse spatial resolutions and with short temporal ranges, high-resolution (30m) and long-term (31 years) NDVI data was generated in this study by using 30m resolution Landsat dataset analyzed within the Google Earth Engine (GEE), a cloud platform with planetary-scale analysis capabilities. We evaluated the relationships between NDVI and precipitation, runoff coefficient and sediment concentration using cross wavelet, and explored the impact of precipitation on vegetation and the impact of vegetation cover on runoff and sediment before and after the implementation of Grain for Green Project (GGP, conservation program designed to mitigate and prevent flooding and soil erosion in China) in different parts of ZRB in 1956-2016. Our results show that there was an increasing trend in average maximum annual NDVI across the ZRB during 1987-2016 and a significantly (p < 0.05) increased trend in most areas. The vegetation cover increases in upstream Chankou and upstream Huining (two representative catchments within the ZRB) was higher than that in the middle stream and downstream, but with a smaller increase rate. Widespread increase in vegetation mostly occurred after GPP because the area with significant increase from 1987-2016was higher than the increased area in 1987-1999. The precipitation had significant correlation (p < 0.05) with NDVI series across the ZRB except for the upstream Chankou where human activities played a major role. The relationship between NDVI and the runoff coefficient, sediment concentration was significantly negative (p < 0.05), which indicates that the vegetation cover is an important reason for reduction of runoff coefficient and sediment concentration. Meanwhile, the human activities also played a positive role on both restoration of vegetation and reduction of runoff coefficient and sediment concentration across the ZRB.

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When and where did the Loess Plateau turn “green”? Analysis of the tendency and breakpoints of the normalized difference vegetation index

Cited by 119 publications

References 39 publications

Evolution of Ecological Security in the Tableland Region of the Chinese Loess Plateau Using a Remote-Sensing-Based Index

Evolution of Ecological Security in the Tableland Region of the Chinese Loess Plateau Using a Remote-Sensing-Based Index

Does Anthropogenic Land Use Change Play a Role in Changes of Precipitation Frequency and Intensity over the Loess Plateau of China?

Long-term vegetation change and its driving factors in a typical catchment of the Loess Plateau

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