Wang et al. (2025) Vegetation Changes and Its Driving Factors in the Three-River Headwaters Region from 1990 to 2022

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Remote Sensing
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-06
• Authors: Chen Wang, Junbang Wang, Zhiwen Dong, Shaoqiang Wang, Xiaoyu Jiao
• DOI: 10.3390/rs17243947

Research Groups

Not available from the provided text.

Short Summary

This study analyzed vegetation coverage dynamics and land cover changes in the Three-River Headwaters (TRH) region from 1990 to 2022, revealing a general increase in vegetation coverage and specific land cover type expansions, primarily influenced by precipitation, elevation, and temperature.

Objective

• To calculate vegetation coverage in the Three-River Headwaters (TRH) region from 1990 to 2022, identify land cover changes over the past three decades, and analyze the primary influencing factors behind vegetation coverage dynamics.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Three-River Headwaters (TRH) region, including western, central, and eastern areas, situated on the Tibetan Plateau.
• Temporal Scale: 1990 to 2022 (32 years).

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Pixel dichotomy model (for vegetation coverage calculation), Deep neural network (for land cover change identification).
• Data sources: Landsat-5 and Sentinel-2 satellite imagery.

Main Results

• Vegetation coverage in the TRH region generally increased over the study period.
• Very high vegetation coverage expanded by 10.3%.
• Very low and low vegetation coverage decreased by 4.2%.
• Extensive bare land in the western region decreased and transformed into grassland.
• Areas of shrubland and forest in the central and eastern TRH areas increased.
• Grassland area increased by 3.7 × 10^4 km^2.
• Shrubland area increased by 2.1 × 10^4 km^2.
• Forest area increased by 4.7 × 10^3 km^2.
• Precipitation, elevation, and temperature are identified as the main factors influencing the spatial variation in vegetation coverage.
• Contributions of permafrost active layer thickness and precipitation to changes in vegetation coverage are high.

Contributions

• Provides a detailed and timely analysis of recent vegetation distribution and type changes on the Tibetan Plateau.
• Offers a strengthened scientific foundation for monitoring, assessment, and ecological conservation efforts aimed at supporting ecosystem restoration in the region.

Funding

Not available from the provided text.

Citation

@article{Wang2025Vegetation,
  author = {Wang, Chen and Wang, Junbang and Dong, Zhiwen and Wang, Shaoqiang and Jiao, Xiaoyu},
  title = {Vegetation Changes and Its Driving Factors in the Three-River Headwaters Region from 1990 to 2022},
  journal = {Remote Sensing},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/rs17243947},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/rs17243947}
}