Anthropogenic and Biophysical Factors Associated with Vegetation Restoration in Changting, China

Changting has been promoted by the Chinese government as a demonstration for the soil and water conservation works in recent years. As the experience in Changting is now being explored and summarized and will be further promoted to the nation, it is important to understand the factors affecting the vegetation restoration process. Random forest and multiple linear regression approaches were applied to investigate the influential factors and their relative importance on the dynamic change of vegetation coverage of Changting during the period of 2000–2010. The Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) was used to calculate Fractional Vegetation Cover (FVC) dynamics in response to topographic, climatic, infrastructure, and economic factors. The results show that overall, there was a dramatic increase in the FVC of Changting from 2000–2010. The percentage of the FVC-increased area reached 87.86% with an increase rate of 0.142. Factors such as precipitation, temperature, elevation, slope and financial investment for soil conservation were important drivers of local FVC change. Our findings reveal that climatic factors along with the strict implementation of government policies played a role in driving vegetation cover dynamics, and the continuation of implementation of soil erosion management in Changting is required.