Mapping human footprint changes over Qingzang Plateau

Abstract

Mapping human footprint (HF) is crucial for understanding the cumulative anthropogenic pressures on the environment. However, its effectiveness is often hampered by the absence of fine-scale, high-quality spatio-temporal datasets. Addressing this gap, we present the first annual HF maps for the Qingzang Plateau (QP) from 1990 to 2020, at a 100 m × 100 m resolution, boasting an accuracy exceeding 80 %. Our findings reveal that the QP’s human-induced modifications were relatively low, with a median HF of 3.39 in 2020, significantly lower than the global average of 7.56. The northeast and mid-south regions of the QP emerged as hotspots for anthropogenic impact. Notably, over two-thirds (68.2 %) of the QP registered an HF score below 4, classifying them as largely intact. However, the QP’s average HF score has escalated more swiftly than the global mean (0.0348/yr vs. 0.0186/yr), particularly in the last decade, indicating escalating human pressures. In terms of stability, montane grasslands and shrublands comprised 75.1 % of moderately or highly altered biomes in 2020. In contrast, tropical and subtropical moist broadleaf forests witnessed the most substantial HF increases. Encouragingly, 26.29 % of the QP experienced HF reductions over the past thirty years, highlighting potential conservation opportunities. Conversely, a significant HF increase across 36.59 % of the QP underscores the pressing need to mitigate the adverse effects of intensified human activities. Our HF maps will be conducive to improve understanding the profound impacts wrought by human activities on the QP, and support the conservation planning and resource management needs, as well as decision-making related to restoration objectives.

Keywords

Human impact / Spatio-temporal pattern / Conservation planning / Environmental sustainability / Management effectiveness

Data availability statement

All data needed to evaluate the conclusions in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. The annual human footprint maps from 1990 to 2020 at 100 m × 100 m resolution are publicly available from the following link: https://zenodo.org/records/10297944.

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Jia Zhou: Writing – original draft, Software, Methodology, Investigation, Formal analysis, Data curation. Ning Wu: Writing – review & editing. Tao Lu: Writing – review & editing, Supervision, Resources, Project administration, Funding acquisition, Conceptualization.

Declaration of competing interests

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

This research was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 42071238) and the Second Qingzang Plateau Scientific Expedition and Research Program (STEP) (Grant No. 2019QZKK0402).

Supplementary materials

Supplementary material associated with this article can be found, in the online version, at doi:10.1016/j.geosus.2024.09.010.

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