Abstract
Dust and sandstorms are disastrous meteorological processes in arid and semi-arid regions and are also an important indicator for evaluating desertification levels. The Horqin sandy region is an important transit zone and affected area of East Asian dust and sandstorms in Northern China. Over the past decades, the Chinese government has initiated several major ecological construction and sand-source control programs to effectively reduce and lessen the occurrence of dust and sandstorms. Taking Naiman Banner as an example, this paper evaluated the dynamics of vegetation restoration at Horqin sandy land using both field survey and remote sensing monitoring. Results showed a decreasing trend of shifting dunes from 1975 to 2008 and an increasing trend of connected fixed dunes at the desertification region in the north of the study area from 1985 to 2008 due to the large scale of eco-restoration programs. The increase of the vegetation remnants coverage in the non-growing seasons was consistent with the improvement of vegetation productivity in the growing season, which could effectively help increase the topsoil’s roughness in sandy land and ease soil wind erosion and desertification. In general, the regional vegetation environment maintained a benign circle. In particular, the effective vegetation restoration initiatives in the region will play a significant role in diminishing the occurrence of dust and sandstorms.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Alfaro SC, Gomes L (2001) Modeling mineral aerosol production by wind erosion: emission intensities and aerosol size distribution in source areas. J Geophys Res 106(16):18075–18084
An YZ, Gao W, Gao ZQ (2013) Characterizing land condition variability in Northern China from 1982 to 2011. Environ Earth Sci. doi:10.1007/s12665-013-2987-6
Awadh SM (2012) Geochemistry and mineralogical composition of the airborne particles of sand dunes and dust storms settled in Iraq and their environmental impacts. Environ Earth Sci 66:2247–2256
Duan HC, Yan CZ, Tsunekawa A, Song X, Li S, Xie JL (2011) Assessing vegetation dynamics in the Three-North Shelter Forest region of China using AVHRR NDVI data. Environ Earth Sci 64:1011–1020
Goudie A (1983) Dust storms in space and time. Prog Phys Geogr 7:502–530
Gu W, Cai XP, Xie F, Li ZJ, Wu XH (2002) Study on the relationship between vegetation cover and distribution of days sand duststorm occurrence—taking central western Inner Mongolia for example. Adv Earth Sci 17(2):273–277
Iwasaka Y, Minoura H, Nagaya K (1983) The transport and special scale of Asian dust-storm clouds: a case study of the dust-storm event of April 1979. Tellus 35B:189–196
Li C, Zhuang Y, Cao M, Crill P, Dai Z, Frolking S, Wang X (2001) Comparing a process-based agro-ecosystem model to the IPCC methodology for developing a national inventory of N2O emissions from arable lands in China. Nutri Cycl Agroecosystems 60(1–3):159–175
Judd MJ, Raupach, Fininigan JJ (1996) A wind tunnel study of turbulent flow around single and multiple windbreaks. part I: velocity and boundary layer. Meteorology 80(1/2):127–165
Liao H, Seinfeld JH (1998) Radiative forcing by mineral dust aerosols: sensitivity to key variables. J Geophys Res 103(D24):31637–31645
Littmann T (1991) Dust storm frequency in Asia: climatic control and variability. Int J Climatol 11:393–412
McTainsh GH (1998) Climatic controls upon dust storm occurrence in eastern Australia. J Arid Environ 39(3):457–466
Mei FM, Zhang XY, Lu HY, Shen ZX, Wang YQ (2004a) The impact of the micro particle groups’ size distribution of the topsoil on dust release flux in north China. Chin Sci Bull 49(17):1776–1784
Mei FM, Zhang XY, Cao JJ, Lu HY, Wang YQ (2004b) Quantitative assessment of the impact of vegetation cover category at the sand–dust source in north China on the intensity of topsoil wind erosion. Mar Geol Qua Tern Geol 24(1):119–124
Miller RL, Tegen I, Perlwitz J (2004) Surface radiative forcing by soil dust aerosols and hydrologic cycle. J Geophys Res 109(D4):1–24
Pye K (1987) Aeolian dust and dust deposits. Academic Press, London
Roels B, Sebastiaan D, Marinus J, Erger AW (2001) Relation of wind-induced sand displacement to plant biomass and plant sand-binding capacity. Acta Bot Sin 43(9):979–982
Song Y, Liu LY, Yan P, Cao T (2005) Influence of five types underlying surface on sand-dust storm in Northern China. J Soil Water Conserv 19(6):015–018
Sun JM, Zhang MY, Liu TS (2001) Spatial and temporal characteristics of dust storms in China and its surrounding regions, 1960–1999: relations to source area and climate. J Geophys Res 106:10325–10333
Tilman D (1996) Biodiversity: population versus ecosystem stability. Ecology 77(2):350–363
Tilman D, Fargione J, Wolff B, D'Antonio C, Dobson A, Howarth R, Swackhamer D (2001) Forecasting agriculturally driven global environmental change. Science 292(5515):281–284
Wang T, Chen GT, Qian ZA, Yang GS, Qu JJ, Li DL (2001) Current situation and countermeasure to the sand dust storm in north China. J Desert Res 21(4):322–327
Xu JX (2008) High-frequency zones and abrupt changes of sandstorms in Loess Plateau Region of China. J Desert Res 1:025
Yang FM, Chongyi E (2010) Correlation analysis between sand-dust events and meteorological factors in Shapotou, Northern China. Environ Earth Sci 59:1359–1365
Ye DZ, Niu JF, Lin JY, Wang YM, Zhou Z, Ju HB, Huang HQ (2000) Causes of sand-stormy weather in Northern China and Control measures. Acta Geogr Sin 55(5):513–521
Zhao M, Zhan KJ, Qiu GY, Fang ET, Yang ZH, Zhang YC, Li AD (2011) Experimental investigation of the height profile of sand–dust fluxes in the 0–50-m layer and the effects of vegetation on dust reduction. Environ Earth Sci 62:403–410
Zhou ZJ, Wang XW (2002) Analysis of the severe group dust storms in eastern part of Northwest China. J Geogr Sci 12(3):357–362
Zhu FK, Zheng XJ (2002) Southern boundary of dust storm in China. The first international workshop on sandstorm and associated dust fall (programme and abstracts), Seoul, Korea, pp 1–6
Acknowledgments
This research work was funded by the China National Public Welfare Projects of Environmental Protection (201109025). Part of this research was based on the Joint Research on Dust and Sandstorms-Working Group II: “Prevention and Control of Dust and Sandstorms” launched in 2007 by Tripartite Environment Ministers Meeting among China, Korea and Japan. The authors would like to thank the Ministry of Environmental Protection of China, the Ministry of the Environment of Japan and Korea Forest Research Institute for their contributions and support to this study.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhou, Y., Chang, X., Ye, S. et al. Analysis on regional vegetation changes in dust and sandstorms source area: a case study of Naiman Banner in the Horqin sandy region of Northern China. Environ Earth Sci 73, 2013–2025 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3566-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-014-3566-1