Abstract:

Establishment of protected areas is one of the most important approaches for biodiversity conservation. Until 2015, China had established 2740 sites for nature reserves with a total area of 1.47 million km², which covering 14.8% of Chinese land surface. Based on remote sensing inversion, model simulation and spatial analysis methods, this study analyzed spatial and temporal variations of habitat from vegetation coverage, net primary production (NPP) and their driving forces in different types and climate zones on the typical nature reserves of China, in the first 15 years of the 21st Century. Results showed that from 2000 to 2015, the vegetation coverage of national nature reserves increased from 36.3% to 37.1%, with all types of nature reserves improved to some extent. The forest ecological nature reserves observed annual growth of 0.1%, grassland meadow type 0.8%, inland wetlands classes 0.2%, desert ecological class 0.1%, wild animal 0.1% and wild plants 0.1%. The NPP of grassland meadow, inland wetlands, desert ecology, wild animal nature reserve had a growth of 2.0 g·m^-2, 1.2 g·m^-2, 0.3 g·m^-2 and 0.4 g·m^-2 respectively. However, the NPP of forest ecological and wild plants nature reserves reduced by a rate of 3.5 g·m^-2 and 2.5 g·m^-2 respectively. In the 15 years, national nature reserves had a weak change from human disturbance, in addition to nature reserves which located in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the south subtropical humid area with a slightly fall, others are increased, especially in the north subtropical and temperate humid zone, the human disturbance increased significantly from 4.7% to 5.4%.

Key words: nature reserves, habitat, vegetation coverage, NPP, China