Abstract
The Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture is a typical Tibetan plateau area, and its ecological environment is very fragile. It is necessary to explore the terrain and cultural factors for the protection of the local ecological environment. We mainly investigated and quantified the effect of terrain factors and two typical plateau cultural landscapes (temples and villages) on the spatiotemporal variation characteristics of four types of forest landscape in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture from 1990 to 2015 using remote sensing (RS) and geographic information system (GIS) technology. The results showed that, under the influence of terrain factors, forest landscapes were only distributed in places with an altitude of 5055 meters above sea level (masl) to 6300 masl, with a slope of 0–27°, and the largest distribution area was shrubbery. The area of the forest decreased with the increase in altitude, and it first rose and then decreased with the increase in slope. Regression analysis results showed that the influence of altitude on closed forest land and open forest land followed a polynomial function, while that on shrubbery followed a logarithmic function, and the impact of slope on the three forest landscapes followed the amplitude version of a Gaussian peak function. Considering cultural factors, temples and villages did not determine the forest distribution in the same way as natural factors do, but they motivated the amount of forest over spatiotemporal scales. Temples had a greater influence on forest protection than villages, and this positive impact was stronger within 6 km. The area of forest distributed around the temple accounts for more than 45.67% of the total forest area, and this area has not changed significantly in 25 years. In summary, altitude and slope affect the natural distribution of the forest, and temples affect the scale of forest distribution. These results reveal the impact of terrain factors and cultural landscapes on forest distribution and could motivate an even more effective management for sustainable forest development.
Highlights
Plateau forests have faced changes for a long time and probably will change in the future as well [1,2,3,4]
These results reveal the impact of terrain factors and cultural landscapes on forest distribution and could motivate an even more effective management for sustainable forest development
Terrain factors affect the natural distribution of forests, and human factors affect the scale of forest distribution
Summary
Plateau forests have faced changes for a long time and probably will change in the future as well [1,2,3,4]. Plateau forests play a crucial role in biodiversity conservation, ecological system stability, the hydric regulation of large watersheds, and carbon storage [5]. For this reason, there is a greater need to conserve remnant forest areas as an adaptive strategy for mitigating climate change and supporting related ecosystem services [6]. At the same time, understanding change trends has been a matter of interest and concern among landscape planners and ecologists [13,14] Forests change in both structure and function, and dynamism is mainly driven by changes in management practices responding to natural, social, political, and cultural forces [15,16,17,18,19,20]. Our research pays attention to the impact of natural factors (altitude and slope) and human factors (temples and villages) on forest landscape, with the aim of exploring the forest landscape changes in the Yushu Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture from two different perspectives; the findings provide effective suggestions for forest management in the region
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