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Vegetation change in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve from 1981 to 2001

  • Environmental Change on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
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Abstract

Based on the NOAA AVHRR-NDVI data from 1981 to 2001, the digitalized China Vegetation Map (1:1,000,000), DEM, temperature and precipitation data, and field investigation, the spatial patterns and vertical characteristics of natural vegetation changes and their influencing factors in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve have been studied. The results show that: (1) There is remarkable spatial difference of natural vegetation changes in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve and stability is the most common status. There are 5.04% of the whole area being seriously degraded, 13.19% slightly degraded, 26.39% slightly improved, 0.97% significantly improved and 54.41% keeping stable. The seriously and slightly degraded areas, which mostly lie in the south of the reserve, are along the national boundaries. The areas of improved vegetation lie in the north of the reserve and the south side of the Yarlung Zangbo River. The stable areas lie between the improved and degraded areas. Degradation decreases with elevation. (2) Degeneration in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve mostly affects shrubs, needle-leaved forests and mixed forests. (3) The temperature change affects the natural vegetation changes spatially while the integration of temperature changes, slopes and aspects affects the natural vegetation change along the altitude gradients. (4) It is the overuse of resources that leads to the vegetation degeneration in some parts of the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing, 100101, China

    Zhang Wei, Zhang Yili, Wang Zhaofeng, Ding Mingjun, Yang Xuchao & Liu Linshan

  2. Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100039, China

    Zhang Wei, Wang Zhaofeng, Ding Mingjun, Yang Xuchao & Lin Xuedong

  3. Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, CAS, Beijing, 100085, China

    Zhang Yili & Lin Xuedong

Authors
  1. Zhang Wei
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  2. Zhang Yili
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  3. Wang Zhaofeng
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  4. Ding Mingjun
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  5. Yang Xuchao
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  6. Lin Xuedong
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  7. Liu Linshan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zhang Yili.

Additional information

Foundation: Supported by the National Basic Research Program of China, No.2005CB422006; Social Commonweal Research Project of Ministry of Science and Technology of China, No.2005DIA3J106; National Natural Science Foundation of China, No.40331006

Author: Zhang Wei (1979–), Ph.D. Candidate, specialized in land-use/land-cover change and physical geography.

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Zhang, W., Zhang, Y., Wang, Z. et al. Vegetation change in the Mt. Qomolangma Nature Reserve from 1981 to 2001. J GEOGR SCI 17, 152–164 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-007-0152-4

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11442-007-0152-4

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