2000

The problem of land desertification in northwest region of China is serious and the ecological environment is severe. It is of great significance to clarify the spatio-temporal variation characteristics and driving factors of vegetation cover in this area for ecological environment protection. In this study， MOD13A3 products in this area were used as the data source to obtain the NDVI sequence set from 2000 to 2019 through the maximum value synthesis method. Trend analysis， anomaly analysis， Hurst index， geographic detector， correlation analysis and residue analysis were used to analyze the spatiotemporal variation characteristics and impact factors of vegetation cover in the study area. The results showed that ：（1） In recent 20 years， the vegetation coverage in the study area showed an overall growth trend， with an increase rate of 0.0027·a-1 and an average NDVI of 0.252. However， the growth rate of the Yellow River basin area （0.0062·a-1） is higher than that of the semi-arid grassland area （0.0026·a-1） and inland arid area （0.0018·a-1）. （2） The vegetation coverage in the study area is on the rise， accounting for 55.77% of the total area， while the degraded area accounts for 3.76% of the total area. The increased land use types were mainly tillage， forest and grassland. The area with sustainable change trend of vegetation cover accounted for 31.87% of the total area， the sustainable improvement （17.04%） was greater than the sustainable degradation （1.27%）， and the growth and sustainable growth of the Yellow River basin area were the best. （3） The main contributing factors that affect the spatial distribution of vegetation cover are precipitation， temperature， sunshine and relative humidity in order of influence， but the influence degree of each sub-region is slightly different. The spatial distribution of arid areas in the Yellow River basin and inland is most affected by precipitation， and the semi-arid grassland is most affected by sunshine. （4） Vegetation cover changes is mainly driven by natural factors and human activities， and natural factors on the growth of vegetation role in promoting are greater than human activity， and natural factors on vegetation cover change in the rate of contribution are higher. The results of this study can provide reference for assessing the ecological environment change under the background of climate change in northwest China.

Keywords： northwest region ; NDVI ; vegetation coverage change ; influencing factor ; GeoDetector ; Hurst index