Assessing the impacts of human activities and climate variations on grassland productivity by partial least squares structural equation modeling(PLS-SEM)

作     者：SHA Zongyao XIE Yichun TAN Xicheng BAI Yongfei LI Jonathan LIU Xuefeng 

作者机构：International Software School Wuhan University Department of Geography and Geology Eastern Michigan University Institute of Botany Chinese Academy of Sciences Department of Geography & Environmental Management University of Waterloo School of Communication and Information Engineering Shanghai University 

出 版 物：《Journal of Arid Land》 (干旱区科学（英文版）)

年 卷 期：2017年第9卷第4期

页      面：473-488页

核心收录：

学科分类：02[经济学] 0909[农学-草学] 0709[理学-地质学] 07[理学] 09[农学] 070103[理学-概率论与数理统计] 0710[理学-生物学] 0202[经济学-应用经济学] 0830[工学-环境科学与工程（可授工学、理学、农学学位）] 090503[农学-草业科学] 020208[经济学-统计学] 0905[农学-畜牧学] 0708[理学-地球物理学] 0815[工学-水利工程] 0705[理学-地理学] 0903[农学-农业资源与环境] 0714[理学-统计学（可授理学、经济学学位）] 0701[理学-数学] 

基　　金：supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (41371371) the Strategic Priority Research Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (XDA05050402) 

主　　题：spatial modeling human natural interaction grazing urbanization road network 

摘      要：The cause-effect associations between geographical phenomena are an important focus in ecological research. Recent studies in structural equation modeling（SEM） demonstrated the potential for analyzing such associations. We applied the variance-based partial least squares SEM（PLS-SEM） and geographically-weighted regression（GWR） modeling to assess the human-climate impact on grassland productivity represented by above-ground biomass（AGB）. The human and climate factors and their interaction were taken to explain the AGB variance by a PLS-SEM developed for the grassland ecosystem in Inner Mongolia, China. Results indicated that 65.5% of the AGB variance could be explained by the human and climate factors and their interaction. The case study showed that the human and climate factors imposed a significant and negative impact on the AGB and that their interaction alleviated to some extent the threat from the intensified human-climate pressure. The alleviation may be attributable to vegetation adaptation to high human-climate stresses, to human adaptation to climate conditions or/and to recent vegetation restoration programs in the highly degraded areas. Furthermore, the AGB response to the human and climate factors modeled by GWR exhibited significant spatial variations. This study demonstrated that the combination of PLS-SEM and GWR model is feasible to investigate the cause-effect relation in socio-ecological systems.