Estimating land use/land cover change impacts on vegetation response to drought under ‘Grain for Green’ in the Loess Plateau

Abstract

A series of serious environmental problems have appeared in North China, especially in the Loess Plateau. The 'Grain for Green Program' project has been implemented to address issues caused by vegetation degradation. Human beings play a key moderating role between drought and vegetation; however, it is not clearly understood how typical land cover changes from human activities impact the ability of vegetation to resist drought. To represent meteorological drought and vegetation dynamics, this study applied the standardized precipitation and evapotranspiration index and solarinduced chlorophyll fluorescence. We investigated the vegetation response relationship to drought and how changing land cover affected it. The land cover changes associated with strategic human activity were also analyzed using the response relationship and environmental characteristics. Our results showed that land cover changes contributed to abnormal changes in vegetation dynamics and type. From2001 to 2016, meteorological drought showed an insignificant difference in Loess Plateau. To a certain extent, land cover changes could extend vegetation response time with the implementation of the 'Grain for Green Progam'. Response time to the drought of different vegetation types in both changed and unchanged land cover showed an increasing trend from early-period to later-period. Similar response time to drought was among cropland, forest, grassland, construction land, and desert of unchanged land cover vegetation in different Grain for Green periods. Forest cover effectively improved vegetation response time and reduced vulnerability. This study improves the understanding of vegetation change and offers guidance for environmental protection projects and evaluating ecological restoration.

Solar‐Induced Fluorescence Helps Constrain Global Patterns in Net Biosphere Exchange, as Estimated Using Atmospheric CO2 Observations

“…In addition, variability in NBE due to land use change may also be a source of uncertainty. Land use changes that alter GPP should also impact SIF (e.g., del Rosario Uribe & Dukes, 2021; Ding et al., 2021) and should therefore be accounted for in model simulations. Land use changes that unfold over decades will undoubtedly change biome‐level patterns in NBE but may not be detectable across the relatively short, 4‐year duration of this study.…”

Assessment of drought and its impact on winter wheat yield in the Chinese Loess Plateau

“…Wang et al (2020) showed that the increasing ET in the LP was mainly driven by the ongoing optimization of human land-use management that was closely related to socio-economic development. Studies in the LP also found that the land use/land cover changes caused by the Grain for Green project modulated both surface humidity (Zhang et al, 2018) and vegetation responses to drought (Ding et al, 2021).…”

Spatial–temporal dynamics and recovery mechanisms of dried soil layers under Robinia pseudoacacia forest based on in‐situ field data from 2017 to 2020

“…Revegetation is generally considered to be an effective way to restore fragile ecosystems by increasing the leaf area of vegetation, enhancing carbon sequestration and improving vegetation service functions (Chen et al, 2019; Cui et al, 2020; Ding et al, 2021; Liu et al, 2008). In China, the 16,000 km 2 of revegetation was implemented by the Grain‐for‐Green Program (GFG), which focuses on soil erosion control over the Chinese Loess Plateau (CLP) region (Feng et al, 2016).…”

“…Revegetation is generally considered to be an effective way to restore fragile ecosystems by increasing the leaf area of vegetation, enhancing carbon sequestration and improving vegetation service functions (Chen et al, 2019;Cui et al, 2020;Ding et al, 2021;Liu et al, 2008).…”