Destruction of vegetation in the catchments of Nujiang river, 'Three Parallel Rivers' region, China

摘要

The "Three Parallel Rivers" region in Yunnan Province, China is a "World Heritage" since 2003 where Jinsha river (the upper reach of Yangtze), Lancang river and Nujiang river are running closely parallel to each other in deeply cut valleys separated by high and stiff mountains in N-S direction. A study on the changes of vegetation coverage in the region using multi-temporal NDVIs of Landsat TM and ETM + images acquired in 1994 and 2000 revealed alarming destruction in the used to be densely vegetated Nujiang river catchments in recent years, the vegetation coverage was reduced by 14.2% in just 6 years!