Jian Peng^1,2, Yinghui Liu¹, Hong Shen^2,3, Yinan Han^2,3, Yajing Pan^2,3

¹ State Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes and Resource Ecology, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China;

² College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Laboratory for Earth Surface Processes, Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China;

³ College of Urban Planning and Design, Key Laboratory for Environmental and Urban Sciences, Shenzhen Graduate School, Peking University, Shenzhen 518055, China.

 

Abstract: The dynamics of vegetation coverage and associated driving forces are one of the key issues in global environmental change. In the study, taking Lijiang County as a case, the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index was used to quantify vegetation coverage change in mountain areas of Northwestern Yunnan, China, with the application of remote sensing data and GIS technologies. And associated driving forces of vegetation coverage change were also analyzed, with a focus on land use change and elevation. The results showed that there was high vegetation coverage with a significant increase in the whole county during 1986–2002. However, due to economic development and the implementation of environmental protection polices, vegetation coverage change in the county showed distinct spatial diversity, which mainly behaved as the increasing in the northwest of the county with low human activities, and the decreasing in the south with high economic development. The results also showed that as a restrictive factor, elevation was of great signification on the spatial distribution of vegetation coverage in a broad scale; while in the county level, it was land use that determined the vegetation coverage, since the change of vegetation coverage grades in the study area was mainly associated with the change of land use types.

 

Keywords: NDVI; Vegetation coverage change; Land use change; Elevation; Lijiang County; China.