Grassland dynamics in response to climate change and human activities in Xinjiang from 2000 to 2014

Climate change and human activities are two key factors that affect grassland ecosystem. Accurately estimating the effects of these two factors on grassland dynamics and understanding the driving forces of the dynamics are important in controlling grassland degradation. In this study, the potential Net Primary productivity (NPP(P)) and the difference between NPP(P) and actual NPP (NPP(A)) are used as indicators of climate change and human activities on grassland ecosystem in Xinjiang. An overall grassland NPP(A) increase than decrease (69.7% vs 30.3%) is found over the study period of 2000 to 2014. While human activities played a dominant role for such a NPP(A) increase, both human activities and climate change contributed almost equally to the grassland NPP(A) decrease. Within the three types of grasslands in Xinjiang, the desert grassland showed the greatest NPP(A) increasing trend that mostly attributed to human activities; the meadow showed an overall NPP(A) decreasing trend that was mainly caused by human activities; the steppe showed similar NPP(A) decreasing and increasing trend in terms of area percentage. Based on this study, our recommendations are (1) to continue the grazing prohibition policy in desert grassland and (2) to extensively implement the rest grazing policy in steppe and meadow grasslands.