Empirical Evidence for Impacts of Internal Migration on Vegetation Dynamics in China from 1982 to 2000.docVIP

Sensors 2008, 8, 5069-5080; DOI: 10.3390/s8085069 OPEN ACCESS sensors ISSN 1424-8220 /sensors Article Empirical Evidence for Impacts of Internal Migration on Vegetation Dynamics in China from 1982 to 2000 Conghe Song 1, Jackson W. Lord 2, Liming Zhou 3 and Jingfeng Xiao 4 1 Department of Geography, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; Email: csong@ 2 Department of Geography, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599, USA; Email: jacksonlord@ 3 Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA; Email: lmzhou@ 4 Department of Meteorology, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, State College, PA 16802, USA; Email: jing@ * Author to whom correspondence should be addressed; Email: csong@ Received: 28 July 2008; in revised form: 20 August 2008 / Accepted: 22 August 2008 / Published: 27 August 2008 Abstract: Migration is one of the major socio-economic characteristics of China since the country adopted the policy of economic reform in late 1970s. Many studies have been dedicated to understand why and how people move, and the consequences of their welfare. The purpose of this study is to investigate the environmental impacts of the large scale movement of population in China. We analyzed the trend in the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR) along with China migration data from the 1 percent national survey during 1982-1987, the 4th national census during 1985-1990 and the 5th national census during1995~2000. We found that the internal migration in China has a statistically significant negative impact on vegetation growth at the provincial scale from 1982 to 2000 even though the overall vegetation abundance increased in China. The impact from migration (R2=0.47, P=0.0001) on vegetation