Abstract
Understanding the driving mechanism of vegetation changes is essential for vegetation restoration and management. Vegetation coverage in the Poyang Lake basin (PYLB) has changed dramatically under the context of climate change and human activities in recent decades. It remains challenging to quantify the relative contribution of natural and anthropogenic factors to vegetation change due to their complicated interaction effects. In this study, we selected the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) as an indicator of vegetation growth and used trend analysis and the Mann-Kendall test to analyze its spatiotemporal change in the PYLB from 2000 to 2020. Then we applied the Geodetector model, a novel spatial analysis method, to quantify the effects of natural and anthropogenic factors on vegetation change. The results showed that most regions of the basin were experiencing vegetation restoration and the overall average NDVI value in the basin increased from 0.756 to 0.809 with an upward yearly trend of +0.0026. Land-use type exerted the greatest influence on vegetation change, followed by slope, elevation, and soil types. Except for conversions to construction land, most types of land use conversion induced an increase in NDVI in the basin. The influence of one factor on vegetation NDVI was always enhanced when interacting with another. The interaction effect of land use types and population density was the largest, which could explain 45.6% of the vegetation change, indicating that human activities dominated vegetation change in the PYLB. Moreover, we determined the ranges or types of factors most suitable for vegetation growth, which can be helpful for decision-makers to optimize the implementation of ecological projects in the PYLB in the future. The results of this study could improve the understanding of the driving mechanisms of vegetation change and provide a valuable reference for ecological restoration in subtropical humid regions.
Highlights
The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is an important indicator that reflects the status of vegetation growth [9,10]
Vegetation NDVI increased in most regions of the Poyang Lake basin (PYLB) from 2000 to 2020
Chen, et al [39] indicated that the NDVI in the Hanjiang river basin has increased significantly, which was mainly attributed to the transition from the mid-high area of NDVI to the high NDVI area
Summary
Vegetation is a sensitive indicator that reflects regional and global environmental change [5]. Monitoring vegetation changes and exploring their driving forces can improve the understanding of surface processes and the interaction between vegetation and the atmosphere, and provide references for formulating ecological protection policies and optimizing land use management [6,7,8]. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) is an important indicator that reflects the status of vegetation growth [9,10]. It is one of the most commonly used
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