Response of Vegetation Restoration to Water Resources Transfer Policy in Arid Watersheds, Northwestern China

Abstract

Abstract Minqin Oasis is the irrigation area in the lower reaches of the Shiyang River in the Hexi Corridor. Since the beginning of this century, in order to prevent Minqin Oasis from further degrading due to lack of water, Gansu Province began to construct water transfer projection. In order to study the impact of water resources allocation policy on the ecological restoration of such ecologically fragile areas, this study took Minqin Oasis as the research object, and took Shuangta Irrigation area, which is in the Shule River Basin and similar to Minqin Oasis except for water transfer policy, as the contrast. Based on EOS MODIS NDVI data and runoff data from hydrological station, combined with remote sensing and GIS technology, using spatial analysis and regression analysis and other research methods, this paper analyzed the spatial and temporal characteristics of vegetation changes in the study area from 2000 to 2016, and the response of vegetation changes to water resources changes. The analysis results showed that, the water transfer policy increased the water resource of Minqin Oasis, and the dynamic change of vegetation in Minqin Oasis had a good response to the water transfer policy.