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Long-term vegetation changes in the four mega-sandy lands in Inner Mongolia, China

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Abstract

Context

Desertification in China has become one of the most serious ecological and social problems. The four mega-sandy lands (Hulunbeir, Horqin, Otindag, and Mu Us) in Inner Mongolia are reported to be the most widespread and seriously desertified areas in China.

Objectives

To explore changes of vegetation activity and the possible driving forces in the four mega-sandy lands over the last three decades.

Methods

We investigated spatiotemporal variations in the growing-season (May–September) normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and their relationships with climate factors and human activities during 1982–2011, using two NDVI datasets from Global Inventory Modelling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) and Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS).

Results

We found a significant overall NDVI increase in Mu Us, but no such trends in the other three. A significant increase was in south and northeast Mu Us and southeast Horqin, and a decrease in south Hulunbeir, northwest Horqin, and central Otindag. NDVI trends were positively correlated with precipitation and uncorrelated with temperature and wind speed in all sandy lands except Mu Us.

Conclusions

NDVI trends showed a large spatial heterogeneity in the four sandy lands. Precipitation was a major determiner for the interannual variations and spatial patterns of NDVI at regional scale, whereas human activities were the cause of NDVI variations at local scale. The consistent interannual variations between two NDVI datasets of GIMMS and MODIS for all four sandy lands suggested that GIMMS NDVI was appropriate for investigating long-term vegetation changes in sandy lands.

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Acknowledgments

We would like to thank Prof. Haiting Cui and Ci Song for their assistances in the study. This study was partly supported by National Natural Science Foundation of China (#31330012 and 31021001), and Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA05050300).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Ecology, College of Environmental Sciences, and Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes of the Ministry of Education, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China

    Daojing Zhou & Jingyun Fang

  2. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, The Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China

    Xia Zhao, Huifeng Hu & Haihua Shen

Authors
  1. Daojing Zhou
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  2. Xia Zhao
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  3. Huifeng Hu
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  4. Haihua Shen
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  5. Jingyun Fang
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jingyun Fang.

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Zhou, D., Zhao, X., Hu, H. et al. Long-term vegetation changes in the four mega-sandy lands in Inner Mongolia, China. Landscape Ecol 30, 1613–1626 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-015-0151-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-015-0151-2

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