scholarly journals Reconstruction of Cultivated Land in the Northeast Margin of Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau and Anthropogenic Impacts on Palaeo-Environment During the Mid-Holocene

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zhuoma Wende ◽  
Guangliang Hou ◽  
Jingyi Gao ◽  
Xiaoliang Chen ◽  
Sunmei Jin ◽  
...  

The study of past global change is paramount to comprehending the present and future, as well as to better understand the mechanisms and influences of human–land interactions in a given region. The northeastern margin of the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau has complex natural environments, sensitive to global change, and renowned for its long history of human occupancy. This makes it an ideal region for the study of anthropogenic impacts on the paleo-natural environment. This paper reconstructed the prehistoric temporal and spatial distribution of cultivated lands on the northeast margin of Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau, and analyzed the Dianziping pollen assemblage to disclose the anthropogenic impacts on the paleo-environment. The results demonstrated that around 4.3–4.0 cal ka BP, the rapid development of the Majiayao culture boosted the population to approximately 39,200 people, over 460 km2 of the land area was converted to cropland, concomitantly, evidence of tree pollen decreased significantly. This marked the earliest identification of anthropogenic impacts on vegetation through agricultural activity in this region. At 4.0–3.6 cal ka BP, the population appeared to have diminished in conjunction with the cultivated land area. Nevertheless, forested areas continued to decrease, primarily due to adverse climatic conditions, but, anthropogenic activities played an undeniable role. Dianziping profile demonstrated the existence of natural forest in the Hehuang Valley during Qijia cultural Period. There was also evidence for the occurrence of regional fire events, suggesting large-scale burning of land cover in the area. This further illustrates anthropogenic impacts. At 3.6–2.6 cal ka BP, populations reached approximately 61,300 people, coinciding with the peak of cropland expansion. Consequently, more of the natural vegetation were converted to crops, and the superimposed influences of farming and grazing aggravated the process of deforestation and vegetation succession. Likewise, deforestation during the historical period can be explained, mostly by human driven causes with limited influence from climatic factors. The extensive exploitation of forest and expansion of cropland consequently resulted in extensive land deterioration, leaving the region with forest islands scattered in less populated, mountainous regions.

Author(s):  
C. Y. Lu ◽  
H. M. Zhang ◽  
F. Wen

Abstract. Cultivated land resources are the basic production factors that carry human survival and economic development. Exploring the relationship between cultivated land change and economic development has become a hot issue for scholars.in this paper,The methods of regression analysis, land use elastic coefficient method, location entropy are used to empirically describe the relationship between cultivated land change and economic development.The results show: Since the 20th century, the change of cultivated land area has experienced three distinct stages of change, showing a process of recovery, decline, and steady evolution in Henan Province. The per capita cultivated land area is characterized by an upward trend, and the per capita cultivated land area is increasing year by year. In general, the intensive use of cultivated land in Henan Province is still not high, but the momentum of a sharp decline in cultivated land is basically controlled. The change of cultivated land area and economic development showed a four-time curve fitting relationship, which indicates that the path dependence of economic development on cultivated land occupation still exists, and cultivated land supports the rapid development of economy.The research results of the relationship between cultivated land change and economic development by using location entropy show that the spatial layout of the urban area is less than 0, and the regularity is not strong.The location where the location entropy is between 0–1 is mainly located in the central part of Henan Province;The cities with location entropy greater than 1 are mainly located in the eastern part of Henan.


Water ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (14) ◽  
pp. 1962
Author(s):  
Zhilong Zhao ◽  
Yue Zhang ◽  
Zengzeng Hu ◽  
Xuanhua Nie

The alpine lakes on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) are indicators of climate change. The assessment of lake dynamics on the TP is an important component of global climate change research. With a focus on lakes in the 33° N zone of the central TP, this study investigates the temporal evolution patterns of the lake areas of different types of lakes, i.e., non-glacier-fed endorheic lakes and non-glacier-fed exorheic lakes, during 1988–2017, and examines their relationship with changes in climatic factors. From 1988 to 2017, two endorheic lakes (Lake Yagenco and Lake Zhamcomaqiong) in the study area expanded significantly, i.e., by more than 50%. Over the same period, two exorheic lakes within the study area also exhibited spatio-temporal variability: Lake Gaeencuonama increased by 5.48%, and the change in Lake Zhamuco was not significant. The 2000s was a period of rapid expansion of both the closed lakes (endorheic lakes) and open lakes (exorheic lakes) in the study area. However, the endorheic lakes maintained the increase in lake area after the period of rapid expansion, while the exorheic lakes decreased after significant expansion. During 1988–2017, the annual mean temperature significantly increased at a rate of 0.04 °C/a, while the annual precipitation slightly increased at a rate of 2.23 mm/a. Furthermore, the annual precipitation significantly increased at a rate of 14.28 mm/a during 1995–2008. The results of this study demonstrate that the change in precipitation was responsible for the observed changes in the lake areas of the two exorheic lakes within the study area, while the changes in the lake areas of the two endorheic lakes were more sensitive to the annual mean temperature between 1988 and 2017. Given the importance of lakes to the TP, these are not trivial issues, and we now need accelerated research based on long-term and continuous remote sensing data.


Atmosphere ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 161
Author(s):  
Liheng Lu ◽  
Xiaoqian Shen ◽  
Ruyin Cao

The Tibetan Plateau, the highest plateau in the world, has experienced strong climate warming during the last few decades. The greater increase of temperature at higher elevations may have strong impacts on the vertical movement of vegetation activities on the plateau. Although satellite-based observations have explored this issue, these observations were normally provided by the coarse satellite data with a spatial resolution of more than hundreds of meters (e.g., GIMMS and MODIS), which could lead to serious mixed-pixel effects in the analyses. In this study, we employed the medium-spatial-resolution Landsat NDVI data (30 m) during 1990–2019 and investigated the relationship between temperature and the elevation-dependent vegetation changes in six mountainous regions on the Tibetan Plateau. Particularly, we focused on the elevational movement of the vegetation greenness isoline to clarify whether the vegetation greenness isoline moves upward during the past three decades because of climate warming. Results show that vegetation greening occurred in all six mountainous regions during the last three decades. Increasing temperatures caused the upward movement of greenness isoline at the middle and high elevations (>4000 m) but led to the downward movement at lower elevations for the six mountainous regions except for Nyainqentanglha. Furthermore, the temperature sensitivity of greenness isoline movement changes from the positive value to negative value by decreasing elevations, suggesting that vegetation growth on the plateau is strongly regulated by other factors such as water availability. As a result, the greenness isoline showed upward movement with the increase of temperature for about 59% pixels. Moreover, the greenness isoline movement increased with the slope angles over the six mountainous regions, suggesting the influence of terrain effects on the vegetation activities. Our analyses improve understandings of the diverse response of elevation-dependent vegetation activities on the Tibetan Plateau.


2018 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 673-687 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antoine Colmet-Daage ◽  
Emilia Sanchez-Gomez ◽  
Sophie Ricci ◽  
Cécile Llovel ◽  
Valérie Borrell Estupina ◽  
...  

Abstract. The climate change impact on mean and extreme precipitation events in the northern Mediterranean region is assessed using high-resolution EuroCORDEX and MedCORDEX simulations. The focus is made on three regions, Lez and Aude located in France, and Muga located in northeastern Spain, and eight pairs of global and regional climate models are analyzed with respect to the SAFRAN product. First the model skills are evaluated in terms of bias for the precipitation annual cycle over historical period. Then future changes in extreme precipitation, under two emission scenarios, are estimated through the computation of past/future change coefficients of quantile-ranked model precipitation outputs. Over the 1981–2010 period, the cumulative precipitation is overestimated for most models over the mountainous regions and underestimated over the coastal regions in autumn and higher-order quantile. The ensemble mean and the spread for future period remain unchanged under RCP4.5 scenario and decrease under RCP8.5 scenario. Extreme precipitation events are intensified over the three catchments with a smaller ensemble spread under RCP8.5 revealing more evident changes, especially in the later part of the 21st century.


2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 6568
Author(s):  
Liping Wang ◽  
Shufeng Zheng ◽  
Xiang Wang

Grassland is an important ecosystem; the spatiotemporal evolution trend of grassland and its impacts on climatic factors play an irreplaceable role in maintaining regional sustainable development and ecological balance. In this paper, based on the remote sensing images of 1990, 2000, 2010, 2020, and 3S technology, we use the methods of dynamic rate and transfer matrix to analyze the spatiotemporal evolution trend of the northern Songnen Plain (China). The method of grey correlation is used to analyze the impact of climate factors on it. The results showed that the grassland changed dramatically and unevenly across the three periods of 1990–2000, 2000–2010, and 2010–2020, with the biggest change in the last period. The internal conversion of grassland mainly occurred between H-grassland (high coverage grassland) and M-grassland (medium coverage grassland), while the transformation rarely occurred in L-grassland (low coverage grassland) due to its small area. There has been a transfer-in from cultivated land, woodland, and unused land to H-grassland and M-grassland. The grassland transfer-out was mainly from H-grassland and M-grassland to cultivated land and unused land. What’s more, the transformation mainly occurred in Daqing City, Suihua City, Qiqihar city, as well as occurring in the west of Harbin and the southwest of Heihe city. Climate change has exacerbated the reduction of grassland areas. In summary, the spatiotemporal change rates of grassland area in the north of Songnen Plain initially showed a mild decrease and were then followed by a rapid decrease. Climate factors were of great significance to the spatiotemporal changes of grassland, and precipitation had a greater impact on the reduction of grassland. The results can provide meaningful information for grassland change, grassland protection, and management in the northern Songnen Plain.


2012 ◽  
Vol 363 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 243-255 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shaoqiang Wang ◽  
Jiangwen Fan ◽  
Minghua Song ◽  
Guirui Yu ◽  
Lei Zhou ◽  
...  

2020 ◽  
Vol 198 ◽  
pp. 04026
Author(s):  
Liyan Wang ◽  
Chao Chen ◽  
Kai Wang

It is an effective method to study the value change of ecological services based on land use and cover change information. This paper analyzed the land use and cover change information in the research area, which is based on the remote sensing images and social statistics data of 2005, 2010, and 2015, and then, quantitative estimation of the ecosystem service value was performed. Yangtze-Huaihe river basin, China is a fragile ecological area, which is selected as the research area. During 2005-2015, the area of cultivated land and construction land was the main land use types in the study area, the land use and cover change in the study area were obvious, which was characterized by the increasing of construction land area and the decreasing of cultivated land area, and the total ecosystem services value in the research area has been decreasing continuously, the value from 34.376 billion yuan in 2005 to 26.161 billion yuan in 2015.


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