Impacts of population changes on vegetation cover: mechanism analysis and empirical research

Human activities have a large impact on vegetation cover change, but the population factors that cause human activities change are still lack of attention in the study of population and vegetation cover at present. In this paper, we took 31 provinces in China as the interested areas to test the relationship between population factors (including population quantity, quality, urbanization, age structure and employment structure) and vegetation cover change, based on the NDVI data. The results showed that the total population growth had a great negative impact on vegetation cover change in China. The industrial employment population growth intensified this impact, while the improvements of population urbanization, quality and age structure reduced it. Accordingly, some measures must be taken to improve the vegetation cover in China, including speeding up the population urbanization, establishing the green security system, promoting new green technologies, optimizing the employment structure, fostering citizens' greening awareness, and so on.