Evaluation on regional ecological benefits of windbreak systems

Abstract

This paper studied how dynamically to evaluate regional ecological benefits of windbreak systems in a county scale. Data of air temperature, humidity, wind speed, crop yield and forest cover percentage were investigated and collected in some of counties of Heilongjiang Province, where windbreak systems were established in the last thirty years. Through analysis, an evaluation index system estimating regional ecological benefits of windbreak systems was set up, which consists of both a vegetation index system and a climate index system. The former includes a forest cover percentage index and a crop yield index: the later does three variable indexes of wind speed, air temperature and humidity. An integrated regional ecological benefit index was developed through combinations of some coined evaluation indexes from the evaluation system. And to take Zhaozhou County and Anda County as a case study, the regional ecological benefits since establishment of windbreak systems of the two counties were evaluated dynamically using the integrated index.