Spatio-temporal variation of water conservation and its impact factors on the southern slope of Qilian Mountains

doi:10.1016/j.regsus.2023.03.001

Abstract

Abstract:

The ecology of Qilian Mountains has been seriously threatened by uncontrolled grazing and wasteland reclamation. This study examined the ecological changes on the southern slope of Qilian Mountains in China from the perspective of water conservation by classifying different clusters of water conservation functional areas to efficiently use limited human resources to tackle the water conservation protection problem. In this study, we used Integrate Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST) model to estimate water conservation and analyzed the factors that influence the function. The results of this study include: (1) from 2000 to 2015, the water conservation of the southern slope of Qilian Mountains generally showed an increasing trend, and the total water conservation in 2015 increased by 42.18% compared with that in 2000. (2) Rainfall, fractional vegetation cover (FVC), and evapotranspiration have the most significant influence on the water conservation of the study area. Among them, water conservation is positively correlated with rainfall and FVC (P<0.05) and negatively correlated with evapotranspiration (P<0.05). (3) The importance level of water conservation functional areas gradually increases from northwest to southeast, and the region surrounding Menyuan Hui Autonomous County in the southeast of the southern slope of Qilian Mountains is the core water conservation functional area. And (4) the study area was divided into five clusters (Cluster I-Cluster V) of water conservation, with the areas of Clusters I through V accounting for 0.58%, 13.74%, 41.23%, 32.43%, and 12.01% of the whole study area, respectively.

Key words: Water conservation, InVEST model, The southern slope of Qilian Mountains, Water balance principle, Evapotranspiration, Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP)

WEI Xingtao, Oliver Valentine EBOY, CAO Guangchao, XU Lu. Spatio-temporal variation of water conservation and its impact factors on the southern slope of Qilian Mountains[J]. Regional Sustainability, 2023, 4(1): 54-67.

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Parameter	Year	Resolution	Type	Data source
Soil data	1995	1:100,000	Map	http://www.resdc.cn/
Rainfall	2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015	1000 m	Raster	http://www.resdc.cn/DOI
Evapotranspiration	2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015	100 m	Raster	Zhen (2017)
NDVI	2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015	250 m	Raster	http://www.dsac.cn/
LAI	2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015	250 m	Raster	http://www.dsac.cn/
LULC	2000, 2005, 2010, and 2015	30 m	Raster	Qinghai Province Key Laboratory of Physical Geography and Environmental Process

Year	Water conservation (mm)
Year	Maximum	Minimum	Mean	Standard deviation	Total
2000	290.38	4.20	63.44	38.53	1.47×10⁸
2005	316.32	12.58	94.17	39.23	2.31×10⁸
2010	275.21	12.93	84.67	33.35	2.08×10⁸
2015	276.34	12.27	85.17	34.91	2.09×10⁸

	Correction coefficient
	Rainfall	FVC	Average temperature	LULC	Slope	DEM	Evapotranspiration
Water conservation	0.97^**	0.91^**	0.87^**	0.59^**	-0.93^**	-0.89^**	-0.67^**

	Rainfall	FVC	Average temperature	LULC	Slope	DEM	Evapotranspiration
Rainfall	1
FVC	1/9	1
Average temperature	1/8	2	1
LULC	1/5	8	7	1
Slope	1/9	7	1	1/2	1
DEM	1/9	1/2	1/3	1/5	1/2	1
Evapotranspiration	1/9	1/2	1/3	1/5	1/2	2	1