Impact Assessment of the Ms7.0 Earthquake on Jiuzhaigou Valley from the Perspective of Vegetation Net Primary Productivity

Chenyuan Wang; Xudong Hu; Kaiheng Hu; Shuang Liu; Wei Zhong

doi:10.3390/s22228875

Impact Assessment of the M_s7.0 Earthquake on Jiuzhaigou Valley from the Perspective of Vegetation Net Primary Productivity

Sensors (Basel). 2022 Nov 16;22(22):8875. doi: 10.3390/s22228875.

Authors

Chenyuan Wang^{1

2}, Xudong Hu^{1

2}, Kaiheng Hu^{3

4}, Shuang Liu^{3

4}, Wei Zhong^{3

4}

Affiliations

¹ Hubei Key Laboratory of Disaster Prevention and Mitigation, College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China.
² College of Civil Engineering and Architecture, China Three Gorges University, Yichang 443002, China.
³ Key Laboratory of Mountain Hazards and Earth Surface Processes, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China.
⁴ Institute of Mountain Hazards and Environment, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Chengdu 610041, China.

Abstract

In order to assess the impact of the M_s7.0 Jiuzhaigou earthquake that occurred on 8 August 2017 on vegetation, the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model was adopted to estimate the vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) of Jiuzhaigou Valley, one of the World Heritage Sites, in July, August and September from 2015 to 2019. Then the characteristics of the impact of different earthquake-induced geohazards on vegetation were discussed, and a vulnerability-resilience assessment system concerning the seismic intensity was proposed. The results show that the NPP_max and NPP_mean values in Jiuzhaigou Valley first decreased and then increased and were 151.5-261.9 gC/m² and 54.6-116.3 gC/m², respectively. The NPP value of more than 70% area was 90-150 gC/m² in July. In August, the NPP_mean values decreased, and the areas with lower values became larger; the NPP_mean values of most areas affected by geohazards were 60-150 gC/m². During the earthquake, the NPP_mean values of areas hit by geohazards sharply declined by 27.2% (landslide), 22.4% (debris flow) and 15.7% (collapse) compared with those in the same month in 2016. Vegetation in debris flow zones showed a stronger recovery, with a maximum NPP value increase of about 23.0% in September 2017. The vegetation gradually recovered after the earthquake, as indicated by the uptrend of the NPP values in the corresponding period in 2018 and 2019. In general, the reduction magnitude of NPP values decreased year by year in comparison to that in 2015 and 2016, and the decrease slowed down after the earthquake. The vulnerability and resilience index corresponding to the three seismic intensity ranges were 0.470-0.669 and 0.642-0.693, respectively, and those of Jiuzhaigou Valley were 0.473 and 0.671, respectively. The impact coefficient defined to represent the impact of the earthquake on NPP was 0.146-0.213. This paper provides a theoretical reference and guidance for the impact assessment of earthquakes on the ecosystem.

Keywords: CASA model; Jiuzhaigou earthquake; geological hazard; net primary productivity; seismic intensity.

MeSH terms

Earthquakes*
Ecosystem*
Models, Theoretical

Abstract

MeSH terms

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