Study of marsh wetland landscape pattern evolution on the Zoigê Plateau due to natural/human dual-effects

Zoigê Plateau, China’s largest plateau marsh wetland, has experienced large-scale degradation of the marsh wetland and evolution of the wetland landscape pattern over the past 40 years due to climate warming and human activities. How exactly do the wetland landscape pattern characteristics change? How do climatic change and human activities affect the wetland evolution? These questions are yet to be systematically investigated. In order to investigate changes to the marsh wetland on the Zoigê Plateau, field investigations, spatial and statistical analysis were undertaken. Findings from our study indicate that from 1977–2016, the area of marsh wetland on the Plateau reduced by 56.54%, approximately 66,700 hm2 of marsh wetland has been lost. The centroids of both marsh and marshy meadow migrated and the landscape centroid migration behaviors were also correlated with the distribution and variation of the marsh wetland on different slopes. In addition, the number of marsh landscape patches initially increased before decreasing; the number of marshy meadow landscape patches also recorded an initial increase, followed by a decline before a final increase. As the effects of human activities weakened, the aggregation degrees of both marsh and marshy meadow increased. Overall, the fragmentation degree, diversity and fractal dimension of the marsh wetland all declined. An investigation into the driving factors affecting the Plateau area shows that the increase of annual average temperature was the natural factor while trenching and overgrazing were the main human factors resulting in wetland degradation. Results from this study provide basic data and theoretical foundation for the protection and restoration of marsh wetland in alpine regions.