| Title Of The Magazine |
Science of the Total Environment |
| Year Information |
2023 |
| KeyWord |
BSC coverage, Dryland management, Anthropogenic impacts, Random forest |
| Authors |
Zhengdong Wang, Bingfang Wu, Zonghan Ma, Miao Zhang, Hongwei Zeng |
| Intro |
Desertification caused by natural factors and human activities seriously threatens dryland biological communities.
However, the impact of these factors on non-vascular plants in drylands has not been fully documented. This study
proposed a framework to distinguish the natural and anthropogenic contributions to the distribution of the biological
soil crust (BSC) coverage. The 20 model-simulated environmental datasets, including climate, soil characteristics
and terrain, were selected to explore the internal relationship between these environmental drivers and BSC
coverage. Random forest classification and regression models were developed to calculate the BSC coverage in the
drylands of China under natural conditions. By subtracting the predicted natural BSC coverage from the observed
BSC coverage, the spatial distribution of changes in BSC coverage attributed to human activities was mapped. The
results showed that in the limited vegetation areas of China's drylands, human activities had a positive impact on
BSC coverage in only 11.3 % of the regions while having a negative effect on 25.4 % of the regions. Moreover, human
activities led to a 33 % reduction in BSC coverage in these regions. The positive impacts of large-scale ecological
restoration projects on BSC coverage in the drylands of China were limited due to land use changes caused by human
economic activities. This framework provides support for assessing regional variations in anthropogenic impacts on
dryland BSC communities and contributes to the development of appropriate dryland management policies. |
| Links To Magazines |
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.168009 |
English
中文