The peatland area change in past 20 years in the Zoige Basin, eastern Tibetan Plateau

Abstract

Using unsupervised classification, visual interpretation, slope mask with the aid of ArcGIS and ERDAS, we analyzed the peatland area change in the Zoige Basin, eastern Tibetan Plateau, during last two decades on the basis of 12 Landsat-TM images. The results showed that the peatland area decreased seriously from 4143.39 to 3407.29 km² between early 1990s and 2000 and increased slightly to 3588.71 km² in 2009. Though peatland area change is positively correlated with the climate trend, the correlation is not very significant. Instead, in considering the population increase, stock development and government policy, we suggest that human activity is likely the more important factor that caus the peatland area variations.

Keywords

Zoige Basin / peatland area / remote sensing / TM images / human activity

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Acknowledgements

The research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 40771212 and 40721061) and the National Basic Research Program of China (No. 2010CB950202).

RIGHTS & PERMISSIONS

2014 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg