Abstract
With the rapid advance of urbanization, rural population emigration has become a key factor that affects the man-land relationship in China’s mountainous areas and may have a huge impact on ecological restoration. This study used the NDVI in the growing seasons to analyze the variation trend of vegetation greenness at different elevations in the Taihang Mountains during 2000–2010, employing trend analysis method. Then, we selected 990 samples, each of which was a circular area with a radius of 3 km. On this basis, we quantitatively analyzed the contribution degree of population emigration to this variation trend after eliminating the influences of precipitation, temperature, and other factors. The results showed that rural population emigration was significant in the Taihang Mountains in the past 10 years, with a rural population emigration rate of up to 16.3%; The vegetation in the Taihang Mountains presented a trend of overall improvement, but local deterioration; The results of the regression analysis showed that population emigration had significantly impacts on vegetation greenness at 1% significance level and 1% of population emigration can increase the NDVI variation trend by 0.06%. Furthermore, the impact gradually weakened with increasing elevation.
Highlights
The world is currently experiencing rapid urbanization, with a significant population transfer from rural areas to cities, especially in developing countries
To comprehensively consider the effects of various factors on the vegetation, Wang et al.[36] have deducted the impacts of temperature and precipitation on the vegetation and used the residual error of regression equations to express the impact of human activities when they analyzed the influences of climate changes and human activities on vegetation greenness variations in the mountainous areas of southern China
The results indicate that the vegetation conditions in the Taihang Mountains have, overall, improved
Summary
The world is currently experiencing rapid urbanization, with a significant population transfer from rural areas to cities, especially in developing countries. To comprehensively consider the effects of various factors on the vegetation, Wang et al.[36] have deducted the impacts of temperature and precipitation on the vegetation and used the residual error of regression equations to express the impact of human activities when they analyzed the influences of climate changes and human activities on vegetation greenness variations in the mountainous areas of southern China. This method can only indicate the positive and negative effects of human activities, but fails to distinguish the types, the intensity, and the contribution degree of human activities. To what extent and are there any differences in terms of different elevations?
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