Spatiotemporal evolution of growing-season vegetation coverage and its natural-human drivers in the Yellow River Basin, China

The Yellow River Basin (YRB) is an important ecological security barrier in northern China, where vegetation has undergone rapid changes under the high-intensity anthropological activities and ongoing climate change in recent decades. This study focused on the spatiotemporal evolution of fractional vegetation cover (FVC) and the driving factors during the growing season in different sub-basins of the YRB between 2000 and 2020. The trend analysis was employed to examine the FVC spatiotemporal changes, and the geographical detector model (GDM) and the geographically weighted regression (GWR) model were utilized to explore spatial heterogeneity of natural-human drivers on FVC. The 21-year average FVC was 0.5780 in the growing season in the YRB, and the southeast region was greater than the northwest region. The FVC exhibited a fluctuating and rising trend of 0.44% yr-1 in the whole YRB from 2000 to 2020, and areas with improved FVC were 36.40% more than those with degraded FVC. The dominant factors influencing the growing-season FVC were precipitation and temperature, followed by elevation and human activity intensity. The influence of natural factors on FVC showed a decreasing trend, whereas human factors exhibited an increasing trend. Natural factors promoted vegetation growth in most area of the YRB, especially in the northwest, whereas human factors had more negative effects, except for the middle parts of the basin. The spatial differentiation analyses of FVC and driving factors provide scientific guidance for ecological restoration and sustainable development in the YRB.