The pattern, change and driven factors of vegetation cover in the Qin Mountains region

The Qin Mountains region is one of the most important climatic boundaries that divide the North and South of China. This study investigates vegetation covers changes across the Qin Mountains region over the past three decades based on the Landsat-derived Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), which were extracted from the Google Earth Engine (GEE). Our results show that the NDVI across the Qin Mountains have increased from 0.624 to 0.776 with annual change rates of 0.0053/a over the past 32 years. Besides, its abrupt point occurred in 2006 and the change rates after this point increased by 0.0094/a (R² = 0.8159, p < 0.01) (2006–2018), which is higher than that in 1987–1999 and 1999–2006. The mean NDVI have changed in different elevation ranges. The NDVI in the areas below 3300 m increased, such increased is especially most obviously in the cropland. Most of the forest and grassland locate above 3300 m with higher increased rate. Before 2006, the temperature and reference evapotranspiration (PET) were the important driven factors of NDVI change below 3300 m. After afforestation, human activities become important factors that influenced NDVI changes in the low elevation area, but hydro-climatic factors still play an important role in NDVI increase in the higher elevations area.