Evaluate the Effect of the Grain for Green Project on Vegetation Variation in Xiliugou Basin

Abstract Xiliugou Basin is one of the ten brooks that flow directly into the Yellow River, facing two key environmental problems: soil and water erosion and flood sediment disasters caused by storm runoff. In order to analyze the dynamic vegetation variation in Xiliugou Basin before and after Grain for Green Project (GGP), we used Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data to extract the series characteristics of vegetation changes from 1998 to 2010. The spatio-temporal effects of the GGP on land cover and vegetation coverage (VC) was characterized using TM/ETM+ images of 1998, 2002, 2007 and 2010. The results show that from 1998 to 2010, total VC was increasing, and areas with poor vegetation conditions declined significantly. Higher VC was for the most part spatially distributed around the river, while lower VC was present in the desert, which would be expected to have low coverage. A high spatial distribution was found in the upper reaches, while in the lower reaches it was low. Comparing the four periods, the VC distribution had substantial variation, particularly in the upper reaches. This was driven by the higher VC in grassland, which demonstrates that GGP can effectively rehabilitate ecosystems.