Abstract
Climate change and human activities are two key factors that affect grassland ecosystem. Accurately estimating the effects of these two factors on grassland dynamics and understanding the driving forces of the dynamics are important in controlling grassland degradation. In this study, the potential Net Primary productivity (NPPP) and the difference between NPPP and actual NPP (NPPA) are used as indicators of climate change and human activities on grassland ecosystem in Xinjiang. An overall grassland NPPA increase than decrease (69.7% vs 30.3%) is found over the study period of 2000 to 2014. While human activities played a dominant role for such a NPPA increase, both human activities and climate change contributed almost equally to the grassland NPPA decrease. Within the three types of grasslands in Xinjiang, the desert grassland showed the greatest NPPA increasing trend that mostly attributed to human activities; the meadow showed an overall NPPA decreasing trend that was mainly caused by human activities; the steppe showed similar NPPA decreasing and increasing trend in terms of area percentage. Based on this study, our recommendations are (1) to continue the grazing prohibition policy in desert grassland and (2) to extensively implement the rest grazing policy in steppe and meadow grasslands.
Highlights
Climate change and human activities are two key factors that affect grassland ecosystem
Climate-induced potential NPPP shows a slightly smaller percentage of grassland increase (64.8%) as compared with the NPPA (69.7%) (Fig. 1b), with only 3% grassland with significant increase, mainly distributed on Kunlun Mountain
The Miami model-simulated NPPP is only influenced by climatic factors and has been regarded as the maximum net primary productivity (NPP) of an ecosystem[28]
Summary
Climate change and human activities are two key factors that affect grassland ecosystem. The potential Net Primary productivity (NPPP) and the difference between NPPP and actual NPP (NPPA) are used as indicators of climate change and human activities on grassland ecosystem in Xinjiang. Accurately measuring the impacts of climate change and human activities on the ecosystem changes has a significant importance in developing effective policies for ecological management and regulation at both national and global scales[9,10]. As an arid and semi-arid region, the ecosystem in Xinjiang is extremely fragile, and the grassland ecosystem is generally more fragile and/or sensitive to climate change and human activity (i.e., overgrazing, amelioration, grazing prohibition, rest grazing and grassland reclamation)[17,18]. An effective method is needed for addressing the impacts of climate change and human activities on different grassland types
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