The Impacts of Human Activities on Ecosystems within China’s Nature Reserves

Protected areas (PAs) provide refuges for threatened species and are considered to be the most important approach to biodiversity conservation. Besides climate change, increasing human population is the biggest threat to biodiversity and habitats in PAs. In this paper, the temporal and spatial variations of land cover changes (LCC), vegetation fraction (VFC), and net primary productivity (NPP) were studied to present the ecosystem dynamics of habitats in 6 different types of national nature reserves (NNRs) in 8 climate zones in China. Furthermore, we used Defense Meteorological Satellite Program/Operational Linescan System (DMSP/OLS) nighttime light datasets and the human disturbance (HD) index estimated from LCC to quantify the living and developing human pressures within the NNRs in the period 2000–2013. The results showed that (1) the living human activities of NNRs increased apparently in the humid warm-temperate zone, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, mid-temperate semi-arid zone, and mid-temperate humid zone, with the highest increase of nighttime light observed in inland wetlands; (2) the developing human activities in NNRs indicated by the HD index were higher in the humid warm-temperate zone and mid-temperate semi-arid zone as a result of increasing areas of agricultural and built activities, and lower in the sub-tropics due to improved conservation of forest ecosystems; (3) the relationship between HD and VFC suggests that ecosystems in most NNRs of south-subtropics, mid-temperate arid zone and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau were predominantly impacted by climate change. However, HDs were the prevalent factor of ecosystem dynamics in most NNRs of north-subtropics, mid-temperate semi-arid and humid zones.