The impacts of climate change and human activities on alpine vegetation and permafrost in the Qinghai-Tibet Engineering Corridor

Luo, Lihui; Ma, Wei; Zhuang, Yanli; Zhang, Yaonan; Yi, Shuai; Xu, Jianwei; Long, Yinping; Ma, Di; Zhang, Zhongqiong

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.04.067

Cited by 124 publications

(69 citation statements)

References 42 publications

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“…This study made an effort to investigate variations in the annual mean NDVIgr and SOS in the SRTR from 1982 to 2015. Our results indicated that the NDVI during the growing season showed an increase from 1982 to 2015, which was consistent with previous reports on the source region in the QTP (Xu et al, 2011;Luo et al, 2018) but contrary to some earlier studies (Zhang et al, 2007).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Quantifying the Effects of Climate Change and Land Management on Vegetation Dynamics from 1982 to 1985 in the Source Region of Three-Rivers, China

Wang¹,

Ma²

2019

GEP

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Vegetation dynamics under a warming climate in the source region of the Three Rivers (SRTR) and its ecological impacts are a source of serious concern. In this study, we investigated the spatial and temporal variations of normalized difference vegetation index during the growing season (NDVIgr) and the start of the vegetation growing season (SOS) for six ecosystems. We examined the relationships between vegetation parameters, air temperature, precipitation and land management using residual trend method from 1982 to 2015. The NDVIgr increased at a rate of 0.0061/10a, and SOS advanced by 0.96 d/10a during the study period. The NDVIgr increased for the all six vegetation ecosystem from 1982 to 2015. The SOS showed advancing trend for the vegetation types for meadow (0.1236 d/a) and steppe (0.3480 d/a), but showing delaying trends for forest, shrub, barren land and alpine vegetation. The results of the correlation analysis indicate an increase in the air temperature in the SRTR is the main factor explaining increases in the NDVI and advancement of the SOS. In general, awarming-wetting climate and reasonable human activities had positive effects on vegetation growth, while the positive impact of human activities was weaker than that of climatic factors. This study provides a necessary basis for research on and the prediction of vegetation changes and their response to the climate warming of the SRTR in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (QTP).

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 86%

Quantifying the Effects of Climate Change and Land Management on Vegetation Dynamics from 1982 to 1985 in the Source Region of Three-Rivers, China

Wang¹,

Ma²

2019

GEP

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“…Additionally, Liu et al [3] classified grassland degradation on the QTP into just two categories, namely, environmental factors and socioeconomic factors. Furthermore, infrastructural development measures undertaken across the QTP, such as railway construction, contribute to the degradation of the grasslands [57]. Other human factors, such as land cultivation and urbanization, have also been reported to contribute to land degradation [55].…”

Section: Drivers Of Grassland Degradation On the Qtpmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Overgrazing by livestock has been recorded to degrade grasslands by accelerating soil erosions [69]. It also serves as a critical factor that influences productivity, vegetation structure, and grassland nutrition [70]; stimulates landscape fragmentation [71]; deteriorates grassland vegetation [22,57]; and induces grassland degradation [34]. The design of effective management strategies for livestock grazing may require an in-depth understanding of the impact of grazing across the QTP [33].…”

Section: Degradation Due To Intensive Overgrazingmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The QTP is commonly called the "roof of the Earth" due to its high elevation, making it closer to harsh and extreme weather conditions [72][73][74][75] and degradation [69]. Climate change is considered to be one of the main causes of grassland degradation across the QTP [42,57]. Literature has proven that climate change accounts for 56.7% of grassland degradation across the QTP [42].…”

Section: Degradation Caused By Climate Changementioning

confidence: 99%

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Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

et al. 2020

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Grassland ecosystems on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) provide numerous ecosystem services and functions to both local communities and the populations living downstream through the provision of water, habitat, food, herbal medicines, and shelter. This review examined the current ecological status, degradation causes, and impacts of the various grassland degradation mitigation measures employed and their effects on grassland health and growth in the QTP. Our findings revealed that QTP grasslands are continually being degraded as a result of complex biotic and abiotic drivers and processes. The biotic and abiotic actions have resulted in soil erosion, plant biomass loss, soil organic carbon loss, a reduction in grazing and carrying capacity, the emergence of pioneer plant species, loss of soil nutrients, and an increase in soil pH. A combination of factors such as overgrazing, land-use changes, invasive species encroachment, mining activities, rodent burrowing activities, road and dam constructions, tourism, migration, urbanization, and climate change have caused the degradation of grasslands on the QTP. A conceptual framework on the way forward in tackling grassland degradation on the QTP is presented together with other appropriate measures needed to amicably combat grassland degradation on the QTP. It is recommended that a comprehensive and detailed survey be carried out across the QTP to determine the percentage of degraded grasslands and hence, support a sound policy intervention.

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“…Net primary production (NPP) is the net amount of carbon captured by vegetation through photosynthesis per unit area and time, and varies with vegetation growing conditions [4]. NPP was considered as an indispensable indicator to measure ecosystem responses to climate change [5], and was also used to evaluate the impacts of human activities on grassland in previous studies [1,6]. In recent years, many studies of NPP have been conducted, which explored the long term monitoring of grassland dynamics and its driving forces.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Grassland Dynamics and the Driving Factors Based on Net Primary Productivity in Qinghai Province, China

Wei

2019

IJGI

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Qinghai province is an important part of the Tibetan Plateau, and is characterized by extremely fragile ecosystems. In the last few decades, grasslands in this province have been influenced profoundly by climate change, as well as human activities. Here, we use the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model to assess the dynamics of temperate steppe, alpine steppe, temperate meadow, alpine meadow, sparse grassland and herbaceous wetland via actual net primary productivity (NPPa). Our findings showed that: (1) From 2001 to 2016, the average NPPa in Qinghai province showed a fluctuation presented a generally increasing trend. The mean value of NPPa was 114.27 g C m−2 year−1, and the increase rate was 0.47 g C cm−2 year−1. (2) There were NPPa increase rate discrepancies among the six typical grassland biomes. Herbaceous wetland had the highest change rate, closely followed by alpine steppe, temperate steppe, alpine meadow, temperate meadow and sparse grassland. (3) The largest area of restoration mainly impacted by climate change reached 47.08% of the total grassland area, with human activities accounting for 21.74%. By contrast, the deteriorated area induced by human activities accounted for 9.78% of the total grassland. (4) Temperature may have been a greater factor than precipitation in driving grassland change during the study period. Decreasing grazing intensity and implementing effective protection measures were favorable to grassland restoration.

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The impacts of climate change and human activities on alpine vegetation and permafrost in the Qinghai-Tibet Engineering Corridor

Cited by 124 publications

References 42 publications

Quantifying the Effects of Climate Change and Land Management on Vegetation Dynamics from 1982 to 1985 in the Source Region of Three-Rivers, China

Quantifying the Effects of Climate Change and Land Management on Vegetation Dynamics from 1982 to 1985 in the Source Region of Three-Rivers, China

Status and Challenges of Qinghai–Tibet Plateau’s Grasslands: An Analysis of Causes, Mitigation Measures, and Way Forward

Grassland Dynamics and the Driving Factors Based on Net Primary Productivity in Qinghai Province, China

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