Abstract
With the increasing demand for global water resources and general deterioration of the ecological environment of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, changes to the water conservation functions of ecosystems and the impact mechanisms have attracted great attention. Currently, the research on water conservation has mainly focused on a single biome type, in particular, forests. Few studies explore the differences in water conservation functions of different biome types. Research on this topic mostly utilizes field investigations and sample plot settings to explore the differences in water conservation capacity of a small number of tree species, but these methods are limited in time and space. Therefore, this study uses MODIS products to evaluate the water conservation function of different biome types in the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Dynamic monitoring of the vegetation and water conservation capacity in the study area and research on the responses of the water conservation functions of different biome types were conducted. The results indicate that the vegetation of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau increased slightly from 2000 to 2015; however, due to the dual influence of climate and topographic factors, the water conservation capacity showed a slight decline. The water conservation service function mainly comes from grassland ecosystems, which are closely related to vegetation density and biome types. Therefore, to greatly improve the water conservation service function of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, the management and planting of vegetation should be conducted according to the optimal vegetation coverage area, vegetation quantities and biome types.
Highlights
W ITH the increasing demand for water resources and the large-scale deterioration of water environments [1]–[2], Manuscript received January 8, 2020; revised March 20, 2020; accepted March 29, 2020
When the Leaf Area Index (LAI) value was greater than 2.00, the water conservation of other woody vegetation showed a slow downward trend with increasing LAI. These results showed that with the change in the LAI, the water conservation functions of different biome types showed their own unique trends; the water conservation function is closely related to the biome type
The vegetation on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau has slightly improved while the water conservation capacity shows a weak decreasing trend, indicating that China’s Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau has relatively adequate vegetation protection measures
Summary
W ITH the increasing demand for water resources and the large-scale deterioration of water environments [1]–[2], Manuscript received January 8, 2020; revised March 20, 2020; accepted March 29, 2020. Shuying Wu and Kai Yan are with the School of Land Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China (e-mail: wusy@ cugb.edu.cn; kaiyan@ cugb.edu.cn). Wei Zhou is with the School of Land Science and Technology, China University of Geosciences, Beijing 100083, China, with the Key Laboratory of Land Remediation, Ministry of Natural Resources, Beijing 100083, China, and with Natural Resources Department Mining Area Ecological Restoration Engineering Technology Innovation Center, Beijing 100083, China (e-mail: zhouw@ cugb.edu.cn). Xunxun Zhang is with the Geological Survey Center of Civil Military Integration, China Geological Survey Bureau, Chengdu 610036, China (e-mail: zhangxunxun9511@ 163.com). This article has supplementary downloadable material available at http: //ieeexplore.ieee.org, provided by the authors
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