Study of plant configuration pattern in guided vegetation restoration: A case study of semiarid underground mining areas in Western China

Abstract The large-scale and high intensity mining of coal resources has further worsened the already fragile plant ecosystem in Western China. On the basis of strictly following the developmental law of regional natural ecosystems, guiding the restoration of damaged vegetation is one of the important measures for ecological restoration in mining areas. However, there are still some problems to achieve the guided restoration of damaged vegetation in semiarid mining areas: how to configure different plant species, and what is the control threshold of vegetation coverage under different site conditions among others. In this paper, based on DEM, slope, aspect and soil type data, 12 different site conditions were obtained by using overlay analysis function of ArcGIS software. The trend of interannual variation of vegetation coverage was analyzed using Landsat Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) time series data, and the spatial distribution of areas of degraded vegetation under 12 site conditions was identified. Based on the Fully Constrained Least Square (FCLS) unmixing algorithm, typical native plants were classified using Aerial Hyperspectral data. Finally, through the comparative analysis of plant composition and abundance under 12 site conditions, the control thresholds of vegetation coverage ranged from 36.60% to 45.30% in the early stage of vegetation restoration. The thresholds of steep slope are lower than that in gentle and flat slope, which is mainly related to the fact that steep slope is more prone to soil erosion and is not conducive to the conservation of soil water and nutrients. According to the calculation results of different plant allocation proportion under 12 site conditions, the proportion of herbs and shrubs is higher than that of trees. When selecting species for vegetation configuration, native herbs and shrubs with strong adaptability, fast growth and strong drought resistance should be preferred. It is suggested that trees should be planted properly after the site conditions of vegetation growth are effectively restored or the vegetation community structure tends to be stable. In the process of vegetation restoration in semiarid mining area, not only the appropriate threshold of vegetation coverage should be considered, but also the proportion of trees, shrubs, and herbs has an important impact on the effect of vegetation restoration. The results of this paper will provide guidance for the orderly restoration of damaged vegetation in semiarid mining areas.