Change of Vegetation and Contribution of Ecological Construction Projects in Hebei Province

ZHU Lijun1, MENG Jijun1,†, LI Jiangfeng2

1. Key Laboratory of Earth Surface Processes of Ministry of Education, College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871; 2. School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074; † Corresponding author, E-mail: jijunm@pku.edu.cn

Abstract This study analyzed the characteristics of vegetation change, and built spatial econometric models to identify the affecting factors of vegetation change in Hebei Province with topographic, meteorological, and socioeconomic data. On this basis, the hotspot analysis and artificial neural network were used to further quantify the specific impact extent of the ecological projects on vegetation change. The results showed that vegetation index in the southern and northeastern regions of Hebei Province was higher than that in the northwestern areas. Vegetation improved in most areas during the study period and the area proportion of NDVI sustained regions, increased regions and decreased regions is 15.14%, 61.75% and 23.11%, respectively. The main influencing factors of NDVI were elevation, per capita GDP and population density in 2000, which had a negative effect on vegetation in Hebei Province, while NDVI in 2015 was also affected by the additional factors, precipitation and ecological construction program, which had a positive effect. The impacts of ecological construction projects on NDVI were positive in most areas, and most of them were slightly improved. The areas with significant improvement were distributed in Chengde City and Zhangjiakou City, which were also hot spots of NDVI change and EPA (Ecological Project Area) change. The negative impact of ecological construction project on NDVI mainly occurred in the northwest of Zhangjiakou City, the east of Qinhuangdao and Tangshan, and the urban built-up area in the south of Hebei Province. The research results provide a basis for the scientific evaluation of the performance of national ecological