Abstract
Planting trees on the right sites is the first principle in silviculture, but it is not easy to apply at a large scale, especially in complex terrain such as mountainous regions. In hilly and gully landscapes of China’s Loess Plateau, the environmental heterogeneity is so great that it is very difficult to choose the right sites for planting trees. The long history of vegetation destruction makes it difficult to have a reference for restoration programs. In this paper, we compared the distribution of actual forest to an existing potential natural vegetation (PNV) map to see the mismatch with the sites. The differences in environmental conditions between natural forest and mismatched planted forest were investigated. The results showed that significant differences existed in the environmental conditions between them. The mean rainfall and temperature for natural forest were 512.20 ± 11.42 mm and 8.23 ± 0.55 °C, respectively, but 497.96 ± 14.92 mm and 8.72 ± 0.97 °C, respectively, for the mismatched planted forest. Evaporation was not only different in range (816–953 mm vs. 816–1023 mm), but also significantly different in mean values (888.31 ± 14.35 mm natural forest vs. 895.90 ± 30.55 mm planted forest). The slope gradient of natural forest and mismatched planted forest was also significantly different (22.66° ± 8.82° vs. 24.24° ± 9.86°). The results identified that 58% of the existing forest in the Yanhe River catchment is planted forest that grows on steeper slopes, receives lower rainfall, has higher temperatures and higher evaporation. The average soil water content for sites with planted forest was found to be 5.98% ± 0.32% compared to 7.52% ± 0.33% for natural forest. We conclude that the main cause of dwarfed, slender, low productive and sparse planted forest in the Loess Plateau is planting trees at unsuitable sites. Our results highlight the importance of matching sites with the best potential vegetation types. Instead of using water harvesting techniques, we suggest that more focus should be placed on understanding environmental heterogeneity and its capacity to support particular vegetation types. This study is instructive for vegetation restoration planning and existing planted forest management in the future.
Highlights
China’s Loess Plateau suffers from soil erosion due to the destruction of vegetation that has occurred over a long history of human activity [1]
Instead of using water harvesting techniques, we suggest that more focus should be placed on understanding environmental heterogeneity and its capacity to support particular vegetation types
Of existing forest was as mismatched planted forest. Those mismatched pixels were distributed across the whole identified as mismatched planted forest (Figure 4). Those mismatched pixels were distributed across catchment, while the natural forest was mainly distributed in the south of the catchment and along the whole catchment, while the natural forest was mainly distributed in the south of the catchment stream channels
Summary
China’s Loess Plateau suffers from soil erosion due to the destruction of vegetation that has occurred over a long history of human activity [1]. The increase in population put severe pressure on land resources; large areas of native forests, scrublands, and grasslands were converted into arable land, while cultivation on steep slopes increased [3]. The removal of vegetation cover resulted in severe soil erosion, massive environment degradation, and widespread poverty on the Loess Plateau [2]. In order to control soil erosion and improve environmental conditions, great effort has been devoted to vegetation restoration since 1949, and a series of ecological restoration programs have been carried out over the past decades, such as the Three Northern Regions (northeastern, northwestern and northern China) Shelter Forest System Project, Natural Forest Protection Program, the Grain for Green
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