Journal of Ecology and Rural Environment ›› 2016, Vol. 32 ›› Issue (5): 716-723.doi: 10.11934/j.issn.1673-4831.2016.05.005

Previous Articles     Next Articles

Assessment of Ecological Effect of the Natural Forest Protection Project in Southwest China

TAO Yun-zhi1, LV Yi-he2, LI Feng-quan1, HU Jian2, ZHANG Kun2, LI Ting2, REN Yan-jiao2   

  1. 1. College of Geography and Environmental Science, Zhejiang Normal University, Jinhua 321004, China;
    2. State Key Laboratory of Urban and Reginal Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environment Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China
  • Received:2016-02-29 Online:2016-09-25 Published:2016-10-08

Abstract:

With the development and continuous deepening of large-scale ecological protection and restoration projects, project effectiveness has become a hot issue arousing more and more attention. Assessment of the effectiveness of the large-scale ecological protection and restoration projects is of great scientific significance to correspondent macroscopic policy decision-making and management. The assessment of the effectiveness of the natural forest protection projects was conducted in four provinces, Southwest China, based on annual mean vegetation coverage, landscape index and the human threat factor assessment index system. Results show that the four projects, as a whole, are improving remarkably in effectiveness, with landscape patches distributed more reasonably and regularly to have better connectivity and less human disturbance. Especially the forest regions in the bordering areas between the four provinces or cities, like those between Chongqing and Hubei, between Sichuan and Shanxi, between Sichuan and Sanjiangyuan, have witnessed remarkable improvement in ecological effect. In the same time, the forest regions around Wenchuan, some in the Hengduanshan Mountains and the Wenshan forest region in Yunnan are not so lucky. Therefore in further implementation of the natural forest protection projects, it is necessary to adopt the strategy, designed on the basis of the feature of spatial variability of protection effectiveness, of emphasizing both protection and restoration simultaneously, so as to integrate the factors, such as vegetation, landscape pattern, habitat quality and disturbance and pressure of human activities, in promoting sustainable effective management of large-scale protection and restoration.

Key words: vegetation coverage, landscape index, human threat factor, ecological protection effectiveness

CLC Number: