The impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland productivity in Qinghai Province, China

doi:10.1007/s11707-013-0390-y

Front Earth Sci

2014, Vol. 8

Issue (1) : 93-103 https://doi.org/10.1007/s11707-013-0390-y

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland productivity in Qinghai Province, China

Fang YIN^1,2,3, Xiangzheng DENG^2,3(

), Qin JIN⁴, Yongwei YUAN⁵, Chunhong ZHAO^1,2,3

1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; 2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China; 3. Center for Chinese Agricultural Policy, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; 4. School of Mathematics and Physics, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China; 5. Faculty of Resource and Environmental Science, Hubei University, Wuhan 430062, China

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Abstract

Qinghai Province, which is the source of three major rivers (i.e., Yangtze River, Yellow River and Lancang River) in East Asia, has experienced severe grassland degradation in past decades. The aim of this work was to analyze the impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland ecosystem at different spatial and temporal scales. For this purpose, the regression and residual analysis were used based on the data from remote sensing data and meteorological stations. The results show that the effect of climate change was much greater in the areas exhibiting vigorous vegetation growth. The grassland degradation was strongly correlated with the climate factors in the study area except Haixi Prefecture. Temporal and spatial heterogeneity in the quality of grassland were also detected, which was probably mainly because of the effects of human activities. In the 1980s, human activities and grassland vegetation growth were in equilibrium, which means the influence of human activities was in balance with that of climate change. However, in the 1990s, significant grassland degradation linked to human activities was observed, primarily in the Three-River Headwaters Region. Since the 21^st century, this adverse trend continued in the Qinghai Lake area and near the northern provincial boundaries, opposite to what were observed in the eastern part of study. These results are consistent with the currently status of grassland degradation in Qinghai Province, which could serve as a basis for the local grassland management and restoration programs.

Keywords climate change human activities grassland degradation spatial distribution residual analysis

Corresponding Author(s): DENG Xiangzheng,Email:dengxz.ccap@igsnrr.ac.cn

Issue Date: 05 March 2014

Cite this article:

Fang YIN,Xiangzheng DENG,Qin JIN, et al. The impacts of climate change and human activities on grassland productivity in Qinghai Province, China[J]. Front Earth Sci, 2014, 8(1): 93-103.

URL:

https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/10.1007/s11707-013-0390-y
https://academic.hep.com.cn/fesci/EN/Y2014/V8/I1/93

Fig.1 Location of the study area and distribution of land use types.

Fig.2 Variation in annual precipitation and annual average temperature in Qinghai Province between 1980 and 2010.

Fig.3 Distribution of meteorological stations in Qinghai Province.

Tab.1 Grid component proportions at different levels of contribution rates () of grassland to NDVI

Tab.2 The goodness-of-fit test with precipitation () and temperature () lag variables with varying powers against NDVI (-Squared values)

Fig.4 Significance of NDVI trends (SD and SI denote the significance of decreasing and increasing trends respectively) (a); Distribution of correlation coefficients of climatic factors with NDVI (b). All measurements span the period of 1981-2008.

Tab.3 Correlation coefficients between NDVI and climatic factors in various cities and counties of Qinghai Province

Fig.5 Spatial distribution of residual slopes for NDVI in different periods.

Fig.6 Map of NDVI max trends at the different period of 1981-2008 (a), 1981-1990 (b),1991-2000 (c), 2001-2008 (d) (-test, 95% confidence 1 interval). Pixels colored in red have statistically significant decreasing trends (SD) of NDVI max and green pixels have significant increasing trends (SI) of NDVI max.

Fig.7 Number of large animals (livestock, 10000 heads) in Qinghai from 1949 to 2011.

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