A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest China
Although we are in an era of enormous global commitments to ecological restoration (the UN Decade on ER; the Bonn Challenge), little attention has been paid to the importance of sustained commitment to individual restoration initiatives and few resources have been dedicated to monitoring, especially...
| Main Authors: | , , , , , , , , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
MDPI AG
2023-11-01
|
| Series: | Land |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/12/2122 |
| _version_ | 1797380317438279680 |
|---|---|
| author | Yuanyuan Hao Xin Liu Yaowen Xie Limin Hua Xuexia Liu Boming Liang Yixuan Wang Caicheng Huang Shengshen He |
| author_facet | Yuanyuan Hao Xin Liu Yaowen Xie Limin Hua Xuexia Liu Boming Liang Yixuan Wang Caicheng Huang Shengshen He |
| author_sort | Yuanyuan Hao |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Although we are in an era of enormous global commitments to ecological restoration (the UN Decade on ER; the Bonn Challenge), little attention has been paid to the importance of sustained commitment to individual restoration initiatives and few resources have been dedicated to monitoring, especially the long-term and broad-scale evaluations that would allow us to understand how basin-scale restoration can result in complex spatiotemporal patterns. Remote sensing offers a powerful tool for evaluating restoration initiatives focused on water management in arid regions, where changes in vegetation growth can be tracked visually with measures like the generalized difference vegetation index (GDVI). In this paper, we evaluate the Comprehensive Treatment Program of the Shiyang River Basin (CTSRB), a landscape restoration initiative in China’s northwest, using a widely available remote sensing tool, showing how it can reveal the causes of fluctuating changes in restoration success. We focus on spatiotemporal variation, studying a time series from 2001 to 2020 using regression, trend, and stability analyses for six different divisions of the study region (the study area as a whole, the irrigated areas, the periphery of the irrigated regions, and the districts of Ba, Quanshan, and Hu) to evaluate the effects of the restoration initiative. The study period was divided into four equal-length phases based on the implementation timeline of the CTSRB, which includes one pre- and post-intervention interval and two stages of the CTSRB. We found that the CTSRB has played a positive role in the restoration of vegetation in the Minqin Basin, especially desert vegetation. However, the positive effects were not obvious in the first CTSRB period, which was characterized by a decline in vegetation growth likely caused by the strategy of “close the pumping-wells, transform the land”, which reversed a greening trend caused by the unsustainable irrigation of wasteland prior to the project’s initiation. During the second phase of the CTSRB, vegetation in the regions of “transform the land” gradually improved, and the growth of desert vegetation gradually improved and expanded as a result of more water flowing out of agricultural zones. The rate of vegetation recovery slowed down during the final phase of the CTSRB, and some areas even experienced a decline in the GDVI. Overall, our findings show that the CTSRB, by integrating water management and allowing for uninterrupted ecological restoration, drove complex regional changes in the GDVI, including successful restoration of desert vegetation. The spatiotemporal variable we observed underscores the importance of long-term commitment to arid land restoration initiatives and the importance of even longer-term monitoring using tools like remote sensing. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-08T20:35:35Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-2efcbf28a22541a19a70eca1620e839d |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2073-445X |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-08T20:35:35Z |
| publishDate | 2023-11-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Land |
| spelling | doaj.art-2efcbf28a22541a19a70eca1620e839d2023-12-22T14:20:32ZengMDPI AGLand2073-445X2023-11-011212212210.3390/land12122122A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest ChinaYuanyuan Hao0Xin Liu1Yaowen Xie2Limin Hua3Xuexia Liu4Boming Liang5Yixuan Wang6Caicheng Huang7Shengshen He8College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaCollege of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaCollege of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730000, ChinaCollege of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaCollege of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaCollege of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaCollege of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaCollege of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaCollege of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Lanzhou 730070, ChinaAlthough we are in an era of enormous global commitments to ecological restoration (the UN Decade on ER; the Bonn Challenge), little attention has been paid to the importance of sustained commitment to individual restoration initiatives and few resources have been dedicated to monitoring, especially the long-term and broad-scale evaluations that would allow us to understand how basin-scale restoration can result in complex spatiotemporal patterns. Remote sensing offers a powerful tool for evaluating restoration initiatives focused on water management in arid regions, where changes in vegetation growth can be tracked visually with measures like the generalized difference vegetation index (GDVI). In this paper, we evaluate the Comprehensive Treatment Program of the Shiyang River Basin (CTSRB), a landscape restoration initiative in China’s northwest, using a widely available remote sensing tool, showing how it can reveal the causes of fluctuating changes in restoration success. We focus on spatiotemporal variation, studying a time series from 2001 to 2020 using regression, trend, and stability analyses for six different divisions of the study region (the study area as a whole, the irrigated areas, the periphery of the irrigated regions, and the districts of Ba, Quanshan, and Hu) to evaluate the effects of the restoration initiative. The study period was divided into four equal-length phases based on the implementation timeline of the CTSRB, which includes one pre- and post-intervention interval and two stages of the CTSRB. We found that the CTSRB has played a positive role in the restoration of vegetation in the Minqin Basin, especially desert vegetation. However, the positive effects were not obvious in the first CTSRB period, which was characterized by a decline in vegetation growth likely caused by the strategy of “close the pumping-wells, transform the land”, which reversed a greening trend caused by the unsustainable irrigation of wasteland prior to the project’s initiation. During the second phase of the CTSRB, vegetation in the regions of “transform the land” gradually improved, and the growth of desert vegetation gradually improved and expanded as a result of more water flowing out of agricultural zones. The rate of vegetation recovery slowed down during the final phase of the CTSRB, and some areas even experienced a decline in the GDVI. Overall, our findings show that the CTSRB, by integrating water management and allowing for uninterrupted ecological restoration, drove complex regional changes in the GDVI, including successful restoration of desert vegetation. The spatiotemporal variable we observed underscores the importance of long-term commitment to arid land restoration initiatives and the importance of even longer-term monitoring using tools like remote sensing.https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/12/2122ecological restorationGDVIspatiotemporal dynamicsinland river basinComprehensive Treatment Program of the Shiyang River Basin |
| spellingShingle | Yuanyuan Hao Xin Liu Yaowen Xie Limin Hua Xuexia Liu Boming Liang Yixuan Wang Caicheng Huang Shengshen He A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest China Land ecological restoration GDVI spatiotemporal dynamics inland river basin Comprehensive Treatment Program of the Shiyang River Basin |
| title | A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest China |
| title_full | A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest China |
| title_fullStr | A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest China |
| title_full_unstemmed | A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest China |
| title_short | A Landscape Restoration Initiative Reverses Desertification with High Spatiotemporal Variability in the Hinterland of Northwest China |
| title_sort | landscape restoration initiative reverses desertification with high spatiotemporal variability in the hinterland of northwest china |
| topic | ecological restoration GDVI spatiotemporal dynamics inland river basin Comprehensive Treatment Program of the Shiyang River Basin |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2073-445X/12/12/2122 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT yuanyuanhao alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT xinliu alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT yaowenxie alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT liminhua alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT xuexialiu alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT bomingliang alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT yixuanwang alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT caichenghuang alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT shengshenhe alandscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT yuanyuanhao landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT xinliu landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT yaowenxie landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT liminhua landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT xuexialiu landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT bomingliang landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT yixuanwang landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT caichenghuang landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina AT shengshenhe landscaperestorationinitiativereversesdesertificationwithhighspatiotemporalvariabilityinthehinterlandofnorthwestchina |