Vegetation survey and mapping on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau
- Jiawen Sang ,
- Chuangye Song ,
- Ningxia Jia ,
- Yuan Jia ,
- Changcheng Liu ,
- Xianguo Qiao ,
- Lin Zhang ,
- Weiying Yuan ,
- Dongxiu Wu ,
- Linghao Li ,
- Ke Guo
- 1 State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100093
2 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049
Received date: 2022-07-26
Accepted date: 2022-12-05
Online published: 2023-03-28
Abstract
Background & Aim: Surveying and mapping has always been an important part of vegetation research on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. Historically, China has performed several vegetation surveys of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and compiled a series of important vegetation maps. In this research, we aim to review the history of vegetation surveys and mapping on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and evaluate the consistency across maps, and to investigate the consistency between vegetation types in several maps and vegetation survey points provided by the Second Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program.
Results: (1) The vegetation surveys of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have a long history, with systematic and scientific vegetation surveys of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau starting after the founding of the People’s Republic of China. In vegetation mapping, the Vegetation Map of China (1 : 4,000,000), the Grassland Resource Map of China (1 : 1,000,000), and the Vegetation Map of China (1 : 1,000,000) were the most widely used vegetation maps that cover the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. However, they are quite different in vegetation classification systems. (2) The comparison between different vegetation maps shows that the vegetation formation groups covering a large area, such as forest and grassland, have high consistency between different vegetation maps, while the vegetation formation groups covering a small area, such as aquatic and agricultural vegetation, have low consistency between different vegetation maps. Furthermore, we select Carex parvula meadow, Stipa purpurea grassland, Carex moorcroftii grassland, Stipa glareosa grassland, Carex alatauensis meadow, Artemisia wellbyi grassland, Stipa roborowskyi grassland, and Orinus thoroldii grassland to investigate the differences in the areas and spatial distribution patterns between the Vegetation Map of China (1 : 1,000,000) and the Grassland Resource Map of China (1 : 1,000,000). The results show that there are significant differences in the area and spatial distribution pattern between the two maps for these selected vegetation types. (3) The comparison of vegetation types between vegetation survey points and the Vegetation Map of China (1 : 1,000,000), the Grassland Resource Map of China (1 : 1,000,000), and the Current Vegetation Map of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (2019−2020) indicates that 45.05%, 21.02%, and 50.83% of the vegetation survey points, respectively, are not consistent with the three vegetation maps at the vegetation formation group level. (4) In the past 30 years, due to the influence of climate change and human activities, the vegetation distribution pattern of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau has changed significantly.
Conclusion: Vegetation survey and mapping technology has undergone great progress in recent decades. Remote imaging with high spatial, temporal, and spectral resolution and deep learning technology have been widely used in vegetation identification and mapping. It is the right time to produce new vegetation maps of the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau at medium or large scales, which will provide more detailed and fundamental data for ecosystem management, and ecological restoration projects on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Key words： vegetation mapping; vegetation type; vegetation change; climate change; surveying
Cite this article
Jiawen Sang , Chuangye Song , Ningxia Jia , Yuan Jia , Changcheng Liu , Xianguo Qiao , Lin Zhang , Weiying Yuan , Dongxiu Wu , Linghao Li , Ke Guo . Vegetation survey and mapping on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau[J]. Biodiversity Science, 2023 , 31(3) : 22430 . DOI: 10.17520/biods.2022430
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