Characterization and attribution of vegetation dynamics in the ecologically fragile South China Karst: Evidence from three decadal Landsat observations

A comprehensive analysis of the South China Karst region reveals significant vegetation recovery over the past three decades, with 74.80% of the area experiencing greening trends. This recovery is primarily attributed to large-scale ecological engineering projects, rather than climate change, which contributed only one-fifth to the observed changes. The study utilized high-resolution (30m) Landsat imagery from 1987 to 2018, analyzed using Google Earth Engine, to detect fine-scale vegetation dynamics in this ecologically fragile karst landscape. Notably, the area of vegetation recovery tripled following the implementation of ecological engineering compared to a reference period (1987-1999), and the restoration trend shows strong sustainability beyond 2018. These findings highlight the effectiveness of anthropogenic interventions in accelerating vegetation greenness gains in karst areas since the start of the new millennium.

Pei, J., Wang, L., Huang, H., Wang, L., Li, W., Wang, X., Yang, H., Cao, J., Fang, H., & Niu, Z. (2022). Characterization and attribution of vegetation dynamics in the ecologically fragile South China Karst: Evidence from three decadal Landsat observations. Frontiers in Plant Science, 13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.1043389