Abstract
The karst region of Southwest China is one of the largest in the world. Due to the effects of human activities and climate change, rocky desertification has become the primary ecological disaster which has significantly hindered the economic growth in Southwest China. In recent decades, the Chinese government has carried out a number of ecological restoration projects in Southwest China. This study aims to analyze the changes in vegetation coverage and its main driving factors in the Southwest China and the karst region of Southwest China from 2001 to 2015 through trend analysis, Hurst index correlation analysis, correlation analysis, and residual analysis. The results showed that (1) both Southwest China and the karst region of Southwest China experienced significant increasing trends in annual fractional vegetation cover, at a rate of 0.0028 year−1 and 0.0029 year−1, respectively; (2) the NDVI of the Southwest China and the karst region of Southwest China was stable, and the vegetation coverage areas showed low to medium fluctuations, accounting for 97.17% and 98.32% respectively; (3) the NDVI of the Southwest China and the karst region of Southwest China had strong sustainability, and the sustainable and improved regions account for 74.79% and 75.77% respectively; and (4) climate change had little influence on vegetation restoration, and human activities had a great influence on vegetation restoration. The relative contribution rates of human activities and climate change to vegetation NDVI changes in the Southwest China were 86% and 14%, respectively, and 90% and 10% in karst regions of Southwest China. Our findings contribute to a better understanding of the mechanisms of vegetation change in karst region and may provide scientific support for local vegetation restoration and conservation policies.
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The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.
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Funding
This work was supported by the Key Research and Development Program of Guangxi (AB18050014), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41701391), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (8192037), and the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2014QD02).
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W Chen: methodology. S Bai: coding, writing, and formal analysis. L Li: editing. H Zhao: editing. X Han: resources.
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Chen, W., Bai, S., Zhao, H. et al. Spatiotemporal analysis and potential impact factors of vegetation variation in the karst region of Southwest China. Environ Sci Pollut Res 28, 61258–61273 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14988-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-14988-y