Spatiotemporal Distribution and Influencing Factors of Ecosystem Vulnerability on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Abstract

As the “Third Pole”, the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is threatened by environmental changes. Ecosystem vulnerability refers to the sensitivity and resilience of ecosystems to external disturbances. However, there is a lack of relevant studies on the driving factors of ecosystem vulnerability. Therefore, based on spatial principal components analysis and geographic detectors methods, this paper evaluates the ecosystem vulnerability and its driving factors on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau from the years 2005 to 2015. The results were as follows: (1) The ecosystem vulnerability index (EVI) of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau is mainly heavy and extreme, showing a gradually increasing trend from southeast to northwest. (2) The spatial heterogeneity of the EVI is significant in the southeast and northwest, but not in the southwest and central parts. (3) Analysis of influencing factors shows that environmental factors have more significant effects on EVI than socioeconomic variables, facilitating the proposal of adequate policy implications. More efforts should be devoted to ecological protection and restoration to prevent grassland degradation and desertification in the high-EVI areas in northwest. The government is also urged to improve the ecological compensation mechanisms and balance ecological protection and residents’ development needs in the southeast.

A Long-Term Ecological Vulnerability Analysis of the Tibetan Region of Natural Conditions and Ecological Protection Programs

“…The comprehensive ecological vulnerability evaluation system combines the study area's ecological and socioeconomic conditions in a modified pressure-state-response structure [19][20][21][43][44][45]57,64]. Furthermore, the evaluation index system was constructed by referring to the index system of ecological vulnerability evaluation in the Tibetan high land mountains pre-established by related scholars and expert consultants familiar with the local ecological environment [1,6,15,21,57,62]. The evaluation system is established on the basis of the accessibility and the continuity of the data [64][65][66][67].…”

“…Following the principles of dominant factors, systematicity, and operability [21-23, 64,65], the multi-index ecological vulnerability evaluation system considered both the objective environment characteristics of Tibet and a comprehensive review of relevant studies [8,15,31,37,49,64,65,67].…”

“…Due to the exchanges, there is information redundancy. In the analysis process, this would result in overlapping and redundant information, as well as erroneous and problematic analytical findings [10,11,15,16,21,68,69]. The SPCA technique may successfully maintain relevant primary components by removing information overlap in the original indicator data [12,21,36,43].…”

“…Vulnerability includes exposure, sensitivity, and adaptive capacity, which vary according to human interaction with nature. An ecological vulnerability assessment is one of the ways to assess climate change, a highlight in ecological research in recent years [15][16][17]. Therefore, by identifying and targeting vulnerable regions, the threat of intense external forces can be mitigated or prevented, demonstrating the crucial importance of assessing ecological vulnerability for sustainable management and development.…”

“…These studies have inaccurate analytical units, a small range of study periods, influences from single-type indicators, and inadequate evidence on determinant analysis [40][41][42][43][44][45]. Though numerous studies have investigated ecological health and ecosecurity and assessed the ecological risk of the Tibetan Plateau, more research is still needed on an ecological vulnerability analysis with an ecological protection project policy in the Tibetan Plateau [1,15,31,35,45,49].…”