Vegetation changes in the Three-River Headwaters Region of the Tibetan Plateau of China

Shen, Xiaoji; An, Ru; Li, Feng; Ye, Nan; Zhu, Liujun; Li, Maohua

doi:10.1016/j.ecolind.2018.05.065

Cited by 69 publications

(45 citation statements)

References 20 publications

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“…Different selections of study areas and time intervals can result in different conclusions. The SRTR had better eco-environmental quality than the other regions in QTP, mainly because the Chinese government has established a nature reserve and introduced numerous ecological restoration programs in this area since 2000 to protect this ecosystem (Shen et al, 2018). The results from previous vegetation studies before 2003 were different from those after 2003 (Zhang et al, 2016).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

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: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

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 changes in the northeast, southwest, mid-eastern, and southern TP regions were driven by three different factors, including changes in surface air temperature, water availability, and solar radiation, respectively. Anthropogenic disturbances may offset climate-driven vegetation greening and exacerbate vegetation browning, while ecosystem conservation efforts contributed to vegetation recovery in the TP Three-River Headwaters Region [280].…”

Section: Tibetan Plateaumentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote Sensing of Environmental Changes in Cold Regions: Methods, Achievements and Challenges

Watts

Jiang

et al. 2019

Remote Sensing

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Cold regions, including high-latitude and high-altitude landscapes, are experiencing profound environmental changes driven by global warming. With the advance of earth observation technology, remote sensing has become increasingly important for detecting, monitoring, and understanding environmental changes over vast and remote regions. This paper provides an overview of recent achievements, challenges, and opportunities for land remote sensing of cold regions by (a) summarizing the physical principles and methods in remote sensing of selected key variables related to ice, snow, permafrost, water bodies, and vegetation; (b) highlighting recent environmental nonstationarity occurring in the Arctic, Tibetan Plateau, and Antarctica as detected from satellite observations; (c) discussing the limits of available remote sensing data and approaches for regional monitoring; and (d) exploring new opportunities from next-generation satellite missions and emerging methods for accurate, timely, and multi-scale mapping of cold regions.

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“…In general, the NDVI values exhibit a decreasing trend which is particularly apparent during 2010 and 2015. However, many prior studies have indicated vegetation greening and advanced phenological green-up dates in the context of warming and wetting climate changes during the recent two decades [22,45,46]. The downward trend, especially with an abrupt drop around the year 2011, implies that mining activities have a significant negative impact on the local surface vegetation.…”

Section: Abrupt Changes Of Ndvi Time Series Due To Mining Activitiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Remote Sensing Detection of Vegetation and Landform Damages by Coal Mining on the Tibetan Plateau

Liu

Song

et al. 2018

Sustainability

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In order to satisfy the needs of constant economic growth, the pressure to exploit natural resources has been increasing rapidly in China. Particularly with the implementation of the National Western Development Strategies since 1999, more and more mining activities and related infrastructure constructions have been conducted on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Mining activities are known to have substantial impacts on plant dynamics and hence the water and energy cycles. Identifying mining activities and quantifying their effects on vegetation cover are critical to the monitoring and protection of the pristine TP environment. Thus, this study aims to develop an automated approach that detects the timing of initial mining development and assess the spatial distribution of mining-ruined vegetation. The Breaks for Additive Seasonal and Trend (BFAST) algorithm was used to decompose the signal in the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) time series derived from high-frequency MODIS images, and to detect abrupt changes of surface vegetation. Results show that the BFAST algorithm is able to effectively identify abrupt changes in vegetation cover as a result of open-mining development on the studied alpine grassland. The testing study in Muli Town of Qinghai Province shows that the mining development began in 2003 and massive destructions of vegetation cover followed between 2008 and 2012. The integrated use of Landsat imagery and multi-temporal DEMs further reveals detailed areal and volumetric changes in the mining site. This study demonstrates the potential of applying multi-mission satellite datasets to assess large-scale environmental influences from mining development, and will be beneficial to environmental conservation and sustainable use of natural resources in remote regions.

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Vegetation changes in the Three-River Headwaters Region of the Tibetan Plateau of China

Cited by 69 publications

References 20 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

Remote Sensing of Environmental Changes in Cold Regions: Methods, Achievements and Challenges

Remote Sensing Detection of Vegetation and Landform Damages by Coal Mining on the Tibetan Plateau

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