Vegetation restoration effectiveness with main factors in the Beijing-Tianjin sandstorm source region during 2000–2020, China

Abstract

The Beijing-Tianjin Sandstorm Source Region (BTSSR), a region with significant vegetation degradation in China, has been subjected to ecological engineering intended to curb vegetation browning. Nevertheless, few studies have used multisource data to quantitatively evaluate the vegetation restoration effectiveness in the BTSSR, and the relationship between ecological engineering and vegetation restoration effectiveness in this region from statistical evidence has received little attention so far. Here, we employed the comprehensive vegetation parameters to describe the vegetation restoration effectiveness, and examined the driving mechanism of natural and human factors in different sub regions. First, we evaluated the vegetation restoration effectiveness in the BTSSR using an index that combined Fractional Vegetation Coverage (FVC) and Net Primary Productivity (NPP). Our results showed that the vegetation restoration effectiveness has significantly increased over time. From 2000 to 2020, 60.9% of the area achieved significant vegetation restoration, and the area with higher vegetation restoration effectiveness was concentrated in the southern part of the study area. Then, we used the Geodetector Model to explore the main factors and their interactions affecting vegetation restoration effectiveness. We found that the vegetation restoration effectiveness in the entire area was dominated by annual precipitation, in the northern part of the study area was led by climate, and in the southern part of the study area was dominated by ecological engineering. We further demonstrated that the interaction between ecological engineering and climate, soil conditions, geographical background and socioeconomic had the synergistic effect on vegetation restoration effectiveness, and the interaction between ecological engineering and annual precipitation had the greatest impact. We recommend that the northern region of the BTSSR continue to build low-density wind and sand control forests, while the southern region needs to be strengthened to prevent soil erosion problems caused by the expansion of human activities.