Monitoring the Grassland Change in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: A Case Study on Aba County
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RESEARCH ARTICLE
Monitoring the Grassland Change in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau: A Case Study on Aba County Qiufang Shao1 • Yue Shi1 • Zhiying Xiang2 • Huaiyong Shao1,3,4 Chengying Li1 • Qiurong Li1
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Wei Xian5 • Peihao Peng3
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Received: 11 February 2017 / Accepted: 9 October 2017 Ó Indian Society of Remote Sensing 2017
Abstract Located on the southeast edge of the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau, Aba County is the core area of the Returning Grazing Land to Grassland Project (RGLGP) on the plateau. For the purpose of monitoring the grassland change before and after the grassland protection project in Aba County, Landsat images acquired in 1996, 2003 and 2009 were analyzed. Using Spectral Mixture Analysis (SMA) model, sub-pixel fractions of land cover components were obtained: bright vegetation (BV), dark vegetation (DV), bright soil (BS), dark soil (DS) and water. Fraction images present the distribution and proportions of typical land cover components in this study. Fractions BV and BS were chosen as two indicators for grassland degradation. Thereafter, Change Vector Analysis (CVA) model was applied on the two indicators. After the performance of the CVA model, change results which consisted of both grassland degradation and vegetation re-growth were obtained, showing the change patterns of grassland degradation and vegetation re-growing in Aba County between two gaps: from 1996 to 2003 (before the RGLGP) and from 2003 to 2009 (after the RGLGP). The change patterns of grassland degradation and vegetation re-growing can effectively assist in the development of environmental restoration measures and in the RGLGP plans for the Qinghai-Tibetan plateau. Keywords Aba County Spectral mixture analysis The grassland change The Qinghai-Tibetan plateau The returning grazing land to grassland project
Introduction China is one of the few countries in the world that possess a wide grassland area (Li et al. 2015). Grassland ecosystem plays a crucial role in biodiversity, water and soil & Huaiyong Shao [email protected] 1
College of Earth Science, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
2
School of Earth Sciences, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, China
3
Key Laboratory of Geoscience Spatial Information Technology of Ministry of Land and Resources, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
4
Center for Global Change and Earth Observations, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA
5
College of Resources and Environment, Chengdu University of Information Technology, Chengdu, Sichuan, China
conservation, climate regulation, husbandry development and ecological balance (Shao et al. 2016). Nevertheless, since the 1950s, the long, unscientific land use trends in China’s grassland areas have given rise to environmental problems such as livestock over-grazing and artificial excess reclamation (Fan et al. 2007). As the grassland ecoenvironment continues to worsen, the Chinese government has successively carried out the Return Grazing Land to Grassland Project (RGLGP) (Mi
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