Vegetation Coverage Changes in the West Qinling Region from 2000 to 2010: A Case Study of Longnan City

As the main content of terrestrial ecosystem study, vegetation coverage change has gained extensive attention in the process of global climate change and sustainable development recently. Based on MODIS NDVI data from June to October during 2000-2010, taking Longnan City as a case area, this paper develops the calculation method of vegetation coverage (VC) by using Pixel Dichotomy model and analyzes the spatial-temporal variation of vegetation coverage in the West Qinling region by using simple linear regression and standard deviation method. The results show that vegetation coverage remains stable and is significantly correlated with temperature and precipitation during the decade. The vegetation coverage of 90% of study area shows stability with small annual variation and also is consistent with the spatial distribution of forest land; the vegetation coverage in the remaining study areas shows a growing trend with significant variation and also is consistent with the spatial distribution of farmland and grassland, especially in Huicheng Basin, Xili Basin and adret slope of Bailongjiang River Valley, indicating that Project about the Conversion of Degraded Farmland into Forest has made a great contribution to vegetation coverage increase. This paper proves the effect of ecology construction in the West Qinling region since the late 20th century. All the findings also provide references for local ecological environment construction and sustainable development.