Abstract
Large-scale human activities especially the destruction of forest land, grassland, and unused land result in a large amount of carbon release into the atmosphere and cause drastic changes in land use/cover in the Sanjiang Plain. As a climate change-sensitive and ecologically vulnerable area, the Sanjiang Plain ecosystem’s carbon cycle is affected by significant climate change. Therefore, it is important that studying the impact of the changes in land use/cover and climate on vegetation carbon storage in the Sanjiang Plain. Remote sensing, temperature, and precipitation data in four periods from 2001 to 2015 are used as bases in conducting an analysis of land use/cove types and spatio-temporal variation of vegetation carbon density and carbon storage in growing season using model and related analysis methods. Moreover, the impact of land use/cover change and climate change on vegetation carbon density and carbon storage is discussed. The findings are as follows. (1) Cultivated land in the Sanjiang Plain increased, while forest land, grassland and unused land generally decreased. (2) Vegetation carbon density increased, in which the average carbon density of cultivated land, grassland, and unused land varied insignificantly, while that of forest land increased continuously from 4.18 kg C/m2 in 2001 to 7.65 kg C/m2 in 2015. Vegetation carbon storage increased from 159.18 Tg C in 2001 to 256.83 Tg C in 2015, of which vegetation carbon storage of forest land contributed 94% and 97%, respectively. (3) Conversion of land use/cover types resulted in a 22.76-TgC loss of vegetation carbon storage. Although the forest land area decreased by 3389.5 km2, vegetation carbon storage in the research area increased by 97.65 Tg C owing to the increase of forest carbon density. (4) Pixel-by-pixel analysis showed that vegetation carbon storage in the majority of the areas of the Sanjiang Plain are negatively correlated with temperature and positively correlated with precipitation. The results showed that changes of land use/cover types and vegetation carbon density directly lead to a change in vegetation carbon storage, with the change of forest vegetation carbon density being the main driver affecting vegetation carbon storage variation. The increase of temperature mainly suppresses the vegetation carbon density, and the increase of precipitation mainly promotes it.
Highlights
The terrestrial ecosystem is one of the important carbon pools and an important link in the interaction between human activities and climate change [1]
The results showed that changes of land use/cover types and vegetation carbon density directly lead to a change in vegetation carbon storage, with the change of forest vegetation carbon density being the main driver affecting vegetation carbon storage variation
The areas of land use/cover types were ranked from top to bottom as follows: cultivated land, forest land, unused land, water area, construction land, grassland
Summary
The terrestrial ecosystem is one of the important carbon pools and an important link in the interaction between human activities and climate change [1]. Land use/cover change can directly affect the structure and function of land ecosystem. Carbon storage change in land ecosystem causes a change in carbon source and carbon sink, which is among the main human driving forces of. Global climate change causes a change in the vegetation growth environment, thereby affecting vegetation growth, structure, and function. Human activities and global climate change pose a double threat substantially affecting the carbon cycle of terrestrial ecosystems. Analyzing the impact of regional climate change and human activity on carbon cycles in terrestrial ecosystems provides important guidance for an accurate understanding of carbon cycle processes and the formulation of relevant policies
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