JOURNAL OF NATURAL RESOURCES ›› 2018, Vol. 33 ›› Issue (9): 1599-1612.doi: 10.31497/zrzyxb.20170896

• Resource Evaluation • Previous Articles     Next Articles

The Spatio-temporal Evolution of Drought Vulnerability in the Ecotone between Agriculture and Animal Husbandry in the North of China

LI Wen-long1,2, SHI Yu-zhong1, LU Da-ming1, LIU Qian1, WU Tie-hong3   

  1. 1. College of Urban and Environmental Sciences, Northwest University, Xi’an 710127, China;;
    2. College of Resources and Environment Economy, Inner Mongolia Finance and Economics College, Hohhot 010070, China;
    3. History and Tourism Culture College, Inner Mongolia University, Hohhot 010070, China
  • Received:2017-08-29 Revised:2018-04-10 Online:2018-09-20 Published:2018-09-20
  • Supported by:
    ; Youth Funds of National Social Science, No.17CGL024.

Abstract: Drought vulnerability researches provide a new idea and an analytical framework for the study on the integration of human-land relations in the ecotone between agriculture and animal husbandry in the north of China. This paper divides the system vulnerability into three dimensions with VSD (Vulnerability Scoping Diagram) vulnerability assessment framework, namely exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity. Taking 112 counties (cities) in the ecotone between agriculture and animal husbandry in northern China as research units, the temporal and spatial evolution characteristics of drought vulnerability in counties (cities) are analyzed and summarized by methods of fuzzy analytic hierarchy process, spatial hotspot detection analysis and variation coefficient analysis based on socio-economic statistics, meteorological data and remote sensing image data in 2000, 2008 and 2015. The results show that: 1) The drought vulnerability index of human-land system in the ecotone between agriculture and animal husbandry in the northern China decreased gradually, and the drought vulnerability was low in northeast and high in southwest. 2) The degree of drought exposure increased first and then decreased, and it presented gradually increasing trend from northeast to southwest. The sensitivity decreased first and then increased, showing fragmentation features in space; the adaptive capacity has been improved year by year, forming a spatial pattern that it is high in the middle, moderate in the east and low in the west. 3) The differentiation of the drought vulnerability in the study area is obvious that the vulnerability difference degree is big in the west and south and small in eastern and northern regions. 4) The number of cold and hot spots of drought vulnerability increased obviously in the study area. The number of cold and hot spots increased significantly during 2000-2008. In space, the distribution of hot spots extended from central region to western region, and the cold spot area extended from the eastern boundary to west and south, forming a spatial pattern of “cold-hot-hot” from east to west.

Key words: coefficient of variation, drought vulnerability, spatial autocorrelation, the ecotone between agriculture and animal husbandry in the north of China

CLC Number: 

  • P426.616