干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

Maps of current and potential vegetation spatial patterns can be used to assess cover changes and aid in ecosystem management and restoration . Due to long-term and intensive human disturbances on the vulnerable ecological environments in Loess Plateau of China this area has been degraded into nearly desert-like condition. Yet, geological and even historic data indicate that the natural ecological environments should be much better than it appears now. This study takes advantage of geostatistical methods and geographic technologies to model the spatial distribution of energy balance (heat) and mass balance (water). The modeled spatial distribution patterns of the heat-water combinations are then used to model spatial and temporal variations in heat-water associated climates. The vegetation patterns based on climatic ecological niche method. The comparison between the modeled spatial distributions of the potential vegetations with "real" vegetations observed in field and detected with SPOT-VEGETATION remote sensing images in the areas with least human disturbances ensures our confident in using the climatis ecological niche method to assess the potential vegetations in the areas that have been severely disturbed by human activities.