The studies on vegetation restoration with 3S and long-term orientation observation

Background/Question/Methods The development of spatial analysis technology, such as 3S, provides the opportunity for us to identify the process under the forest landscape dynamics.  It may be used to monitor vegetation restoration with the time series, and show “where” and “what” happen in the process.  However, such studies of landscape pattern dynamics have been mostly to make the statement to surface changing, and lacked in showing “how” and “why” those changes happened.  The analysis of “how” and “why” need to combine with the biological and ecological process, such as community succession.  This study investigated forest landscape dynamics of three main forest types and analyzed the processes and mechanisms of landscape dynamics through multi-scale coupling in the Dinghushan Nature Reserve (DNR), Guangdong Province, China. Results/Conclusions The case study showed that forest cover increased in the DNR in terms of overall change from 1978 to 2006 through the analysis of remote sensing data. The patch number, patch area and patch perimeter of needle-leaved mixed broad-leaved forest (MF) and evergreen broad-leaved forest (BF) increased gradually; while, conversely, that of the tropical needle-leaved forest (NF) decreased. The analysis on long-term orientation observation indicated that the change rate of NF was lower than MF during 1981-1996, while the former was markedly higher during 1996-2007, NF accelerated in the later stages. The results showed that the changes of species composition and community structure in succession were the cause of vegetation landscape dynamics. The landscape analysis with 3S can show “where” and “what” happen in vegetation restoration process, and population and community analysis with long-term orientation observation can show “why” and “how” happen in the term. The change of landscape pattern depends on the succession of communities and species composition. It implies that the changes of community succession are biological basis of forest landscape dynamics in vegetation restoration. Coupling 3S with long-term orientation observation is significance for the study on vegetation restoration, and necessary for the analysis on all types of ecosystem restoration.