Detecting and attributing vegetation changes in Taihang Mountain, China

Abstract

Attributing vegetation changes provide fundamental information for ecosystem management, especially in mountainous areas which has vulnerable ecosystems. Based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data, the spatial-temporal change of vegetation was detected in Taihang Mountain (THM) from 2000 to 2014. The topographical factors were introduced to interpret the response of vegetation variation to climate change and human activities. Results showed that the avegaged NDVI during growing season showed a single-peak curve distribution, with the largest value (0.628) among 1600–1800 m. A significant greening trend was detected in THM, with the largest increasing rate (0.0078 yr-1) among the elevation of 1600–1800 m and slope gradient between 3~5°. The partial correlation and multiple correlation analyses indicated that vegetation variation in more than 81.8% pixels of the THM was mainly impacted by human activities. In the low elevation zones less than 1000 m, increasing precipitation is the principle factor promoting vegetation restoration, whereas in the high elevation zones of THM, temperature is the restricted factors impacting vegetation variation. Considering the dramatic climate change in the future, further studies should be conducted to explore inherent mechanism of vegetation growth to dynamic environment changes.