Assessing Land Degradation Dynamics and Distinguishing Human-Induced Changes from Climate Factors in the Three-North Shelter Forest Region of China

Land degradation is a major threat to the sustainability of human habitation, and it is essential to assess it quantitatively. Assessment of the human-induced aspect is especially important for planning appropriate prevention measures. This paper used the Three-North Shelter Forest Program region as the study area, and assessed the land degradation dynamic using a time series of summed normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) based on a trend analysis of the Theil-Sen slope and Mann-Kendall test. The human-induced land degradation was separated from degradation driven by climate using the meteorological dataset through the residual trend (RESTREND) method for the period 1982–2006. The results showed that (1) the NDVI in the study area mainly exhibited an increasing trend, approximately 13.00% of the study area experienced significantly positive NDVI trends and 6.20% showed decline. Furthermore, (2) the correlation between the summed NDVI and precipitation was higher than the correlation between NDVI and temperature, suggesting that precipitation was the most essential factor that impacted NDVI dynamic in the study area; (3) The significant trends of vegetation by anthropogenic disturbances were detected, which were significant positive and negative trends of 11.93% and 6.19%, respectively. All of these findings enrich our knowledge of human activities that impact land degradation in arid or semi-arid regions and provide a scientific basis for the management of ecological restoration programs.

[1]  Elias Symeonakis,et al.  Remote Sensing Assessing Land Degradation and Desertification Using Vegetation Index Data: Current Frameworks and Future Directions , 2022 .

[2]  Mihretab G. Ghebrezgabher,et al.  Spatial-temporal dynamics of desert vegetation and its responses to climatic variations over the last three decades: a case study of Hexi region in Northwest China , 2016, Journal of Arid Land.

[3]  Quyet Manh Vu,et al.  Hotspots of human-induced biomass productivity decline and their social–ecological types toward supporting national policy and local studies on combating land degradation , 2014 .

[4]  N. Pettorelli,et al.  Using the satellite-derived NDVI to assess ecological responses to environmental change. , 2005, Trends in ecology & evolution.

[5]  Lenard Milich,et al.  GAC NDVI images: Relationship to rainfall and potential evaporation in the grazing lands of The Gourma (northern Sahel) and in the croplands of the Niger-Nigeria border (southern Sahel) , 2000 .

[6]  Tianjie Lei,et al.  Increasing terrestrial vegetation activity of ecological restoration program in the Beijing–Tianjin Sand Source Region of China , 2013 .

[7]  V Itz,et al.  Evidence from rain-use efficiencies does not indicate extensive Sahelian desertification , 1998 .

[8]  Guangyu Wang,et al.  Ecology. China's forestry reforms. , 2007, Science.

[9]  M. C. Rutherford.  Annual plant production-precipitation relations in arid and semi-arid regions , 1965 .

[10]  G. Pickup,et al.  Remote‐Sensing‐Based Condition Assessment for Nonequilibrium Rangelands Under Large‐Scale Commercial Grazing , 1994 .

[11]  C. Tucker,et al.  Recent trends in vegetation dynamics in the African Sahel and their relationship to climate , 2005 .

[12]  Jürgen Vogt,et al.  Monitoring and assessment of land degradation and desertification: Towards new conceptual and integrated approaches , 2011 .

[13]  Christopher O. Justice,et al.  Monitoring the grasslands of the Sahel using NOAA AVHRR data: Niger 1983 , 1986 .

[14]  Michael L. Roderick,et al.  The use of time-integrated NOAA NDVI data and rainfall to assess landscape degradation in the arid shrubland of Western Australia , 2003 .

[15]  Quang Bao Le,et al.  Multi-pronged assessment of land degradation in West Africa to assess the importance of atmospheric fertilization in masking the processes involved , 2012 .

[16]  Zheng Niu,et al.  Vegetation NPP distribution based on MODIS data and CASA model—A case study of northern Hebei Province , 2006 .

[17]  Guangyu Wang,et al.  China's Forestry Reforms , 2007, Science.

[18]  Martin Brandt,et al.  What Four Decades of Earth Observation Tell Us about Land Degradation in the Sahel? , 2015, Remote. Sens..

[19]  H. L. Houérou,et al.  Relationship between the variability of primary production and the variability of annual precipitation in world arid lands , 1988 .

[20]  Rasmus Fensholt,et al.  Assessing Land Degradation/Recovery in the African Sahel from Long-Term Earth Observation Based Primary Productivity and Precipitation Relationships , 2013, Remote. Sens..

[21]  B. Poulter,et al.  Detection and attribution of vegetation greening trend in China over the last 30 years , 2015, Global change biology.

[22]  Rasmus Fensholt,et al.  Analysis of trends in the Sahelian `rain-use efficiency' using GIMMS NDVI, RFE and GPCP rainfall data , 2011 .

[23]  M. Schaepman,et al.  Proxy global assessment of land degradation , 2008 .

[24]  Jennifer Small,et al.  Can human-induced land degradation be distinguished from the effects of rainfall variability? A case study in South Africa , 2007 .

[25]  Michael E. Schaepman,et al.  Desertification in the Sahel: Towards better accounting for ecosystem dynamics in the interpretation of remote sensing images , 2011 .

[26]  Kevin P. Price,et al.  Spatial patterns of NDVI in response to precipitation and temperature in the central Great Plains , 2001 .

[27]  F. van den Bergh,et al.  Limits to detectability of land degradation by trend analysis of vegetation index data , 2012 .

[28]  G. Pickup.  Estimating the effects of land degradation and rainfall variation on productivity in rangelands: an approach using remote sensing and models of grazing and herbage dynamics , 1996 .

[29]  Tao Wang,et al.  Aeolian desertification from the mid-1970s to 2005 in Otindag Sandy Land, Northern China , 2007 .

[30]  H. Tian,et al.  Drought in the Southern United States over the 20th century: variability and its impacts on terrestrial ecosystem productivity and carbon storage , 2012, Climatic Change.

[31]  Jiali Xie,et al.  Assessing vegetation dynamics in the Three-North Shelter Forest region of China using AVHRR NDVI data , 2011 .

[32]  C. Peng,et al.  Changes in Forest Biomass Carbon Storage in China Between 1949 and 1998 , 2001, Science.

[33]  Jianguo Wu,et al.  Urbanization alters spatiotemporal patterns of ecosystem primary production: a case study of the Phoenix metropolitan region, USA. , 2009 .

[34]  Albert J. Peters,et al.  A spatial regression procedure for evaluating the relationship between AVHRR-NDVI and climate in the northern Great Plains , 2004 .

[35]  David Dent,et al.  Quantitative mapping of global land degradation using Earth observations , 2011 .

[36]  Wenbo Xu,et al.  Modelling gross primary production in the Heihe river basin and uncertainty analysis , 2012 .

[37]  T. Downing,et al.  Global Desertification: Building a Science for Dryland Development , 2007, Science.

[38]  C. Tucker,et al.  Desertification in the Sahel: a reinterpretation of a reinterpretation , 2007 .

[39]  Célia M. Gouveia,et al.  The 2009/10 Drought in China: Possible Causes and Impacts on Vegetation , 2012 .

[40]  H. Theil.  A Rank-Invariant Method of Linear and Polynomial Regression Analysis , 1992 .

[41]  Jean-Philippe Gastellu-Etchegorry,et al.  Relating the Global Vegetation Index to net primary productivity and actual evapotranspiration over Africa , 1993 .

[42]  S. Piao,et al.  Interannual variations of monthly and seasonal normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in China from 1982 to 1999 , 2003 .

[43]  L. Ci,et al.  Comment on "Why large-scale afforestation efforts in China have failed to solve the desertification problem". , 2008, Environmental science & technology.

[44]  Jianguo Liu,et al.  Ecological and socioeconomic effects of China's policies for ecosystem services , 2008, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[45]  E. Archer.  Beyond the “climate versus grazing” impasse: using remote sensing to investigate the effects of grazing system choice on vegetation cover in the eastern Karoo , 2004 .

[46]  Liangyun Liu,et al.  Mapping afforestation and deforestation from 1974 to 2012 using Landsat time-series stacks in Yulin District, a key region of the Three-North Shelter region, China , 2013, Environmental Monitoring and Assessment.

[47]  Inbal Becker-Reshef,et al.  Detection and mapping of long-term land degradation using local net production scaling: application to Zimbabwe. , 2009 .

[48]  P. Sen.  Estimates of the Regression Coefficient Based on Kendall's Tau , 1968 .

[49]  M. Rosenzweig.  Net Primary Productivity of Terrestrial Communities: Prediction from Climatological Data , 1968, The American Naturalist.

[50]  Edwin W. Pak,et al.  An extended AVHRR 8‐km NDVI dataset compatible with MODIS and SPOT vegetation NDVI data , 2005 .

[51]  Konrad J Wessels.  Comments on Proxy global assessment of land degradation by Bai et al. (2008) , 2009 .

[52]  Runsheng Yin,et al.  China’s Primary Programs of Terrestrial Ecosystem Restoration: Initiation, Implementation, and Challenges , 2010, Environmental management.

[53]  K. J. Wessels,et al.  Relationship between herbaceous biomass and 1‐km2 Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) NDVI in Kruger National Park, South Africa , 2006 .

[54]  J. Randerson,et al.  Terrestrial ecosystem production: A process model based on global satellite and surface data , 1993 .

[55]  Rasmus Fensholt,et al.  Greenness in semi-arid areas across the globe 1981–2007 — an Earth Observing Satellite based analysis of trends and drivers , 2012 .

[56]  J. Evans,et al.  Discrimination between climate and human-induced dryland degradation. , 2004 .

[57]  H. Liniger,et al.  Trend analysis of MODIS NDVI time series for detecting land degradation and regeneration in Mongolia , 2015 .

[58]  Zhibao Dong,et al.  Has the Three Norths Forest Shelterbelt Program solved the desertification and dust storm problems in arid and semiarid China , 2010 .

[59]  P. Ciais,et al.  The impacts of climate change on water resources and agriculture in China , 2010, Nature.