Land cover and land use changes under forest protection and restoration in Tiantangzhai Township, Anhui, China

Land cover and land use changes under forest protection and restoration in Tiantangzhai Township, Anhui, China Public Deposited

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Abstract

Deforestation and forest regeneration are two key changes in the forest ecosystem that have profound impacts of the goods and services in terrestrial ecosystem. In late 1990s, China implemented Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) and Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP) aimed at forest protection and restoration. Using archived historical images, this study compared the land-cover/land-use (LCLU) changes before and after the programs and developed remote sensing indices to characterize the growth trajectory of Grain-For-Green (GFG) and natural forests. The results indicate substantial increase of natural forest cover during 2002-2013, compared with that during 1992-2002. The proposed indices revealed aggradation for both NFPP and GFG forests since the implementation of these policies. Further analysis found spatial variation of forest development depends on the topographic factors. This study reveals that SLCP and NFPP have been improving forest growth and development in the study area since the implementation of these policies.

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