Acta Geographica Sinica ›› 2012, Vol. 67 ›› Issue (5): 589-598.doi: 10.11821/xb201205002

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The Distribution and Drivers of Land Degradation in the Three-North Shelter Forest Region of China during 1982-2006

HUANG Senwang1,2, LI Xiaosong1, WU Bingfang1, PEI Liang2   

  1. 1. Institute of Remote Sensing Applications, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;
    2. Department of Survey and Geography Science, Liaoning Project Technology University, Fuxin 123000, Liaoning, China
  • Received:2011-09-20 Revised:2011-11-11 Online:2012-05-20 Published:2012-05-20
  • Supported by:
    The Key Project of Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, No.KZCX1-YW-08-03; National Science and Technology Supporting Item, No.2011BAH23B04

Abstract: It is important to conduct studies on spatio-temporal distribution and drivers based on remote sensing for quantitative estimation of large-scale regional land degradation. In this paper, we analyze the land degradation trend in the Three-North Shelter Forest region of China from 1982 to 2006, using the remotely-sensed data of NOAA/AVHRR Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) based on the Sen +Mann-Kendall trend analysis method, and assess the combined effect of human activities and precipitation on the regional land degradation by using the Residual Trends model. The results indicate that the land degradation have a declining trend as a whole, with the significant increase and the significant decrease being 13.00% and 17.29%, respectively. Land degradation in most of the provinces tends to be relatively slight, especially in Inner Mongolia, Qinghai and Xinjiang, while Gansu witnesses the opposite trend. Human activities contributed 11.93% to the significant vegetation increase, and 6.19% to the degradation. This means that in the arid or semi-arid regions, the temporal change of precipitation is not significant, so the obvious vegetation change is mainly affected by human activities.

Key words: land degradation, remote sensing, Sen + Mann-Kendall, Residual Trends method, spatial distribution, Three-North Shelter Forest