Spatial and temporal variations of vegetation in Qinghai Province based on satellite data

This paper used five years (2001-2006) time series of MODIS NDVI images with a 1-km spatial resolution to produce a land cover map of Qinghai Province in China. A classification approach for different land cover types with special emphasis on vegetation, especially on sparse vegetation, was developed which synthesized Decision Tree Classification, Supervised Classification and Unsupervised Classification. The spatial distribution and dynamic change of vegetation cover in Qinghai from 2001 to 2006 were analyzed based on the land cover classification map and five grade elevation belts derived from Qinghai DEM. The result shows that vegetation cover in Qinghai in recent five years has been some improved and the area of vegetation was increased from 370,047 km(2) in 2001 to 374,576 km(2) in 2006. Meanwhile, vegetation cover ratio was increased by 0.63%. Vegetation cover ratio in high mountain belt is the largest (67.92%) among the five grade elevation belts in Qinghai Province. The second largest vegetation cover ratio is in middle mountain belt (61.80%). Next, in the order of the decreasing vegetation cover ratio, the remaining grades are extreme high mountain belt (38.98%), low mountain belt (25.55%) and flat region belt (15.46%). The area of middle density grassland in high mountain belt is the biggest (94,003 km(2)), and vegetation cover ratio of dense grassland in middle mountain belt is the highest (32.62%), and the increased area of dense grassland in high mountain belt is the greatest (1280 km(2)). In recent five years the conversion from sparse grass to middle density grass in high mountain belt has been the largest vegetation cover variation and the converted area is 15931 km(2).