Impact Assessment of the Ms7.0 Earthquake on Jiuzhaigou Valley from the Perspective of Vegetation Net Primary Productivity

In order to assess the impact of the M(s)7.0 Jiuzhaigou earthquake that occurred on 8 August 2017 on vegetation, the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model was adopted to estimate the vegetation net primary productivity (NPP) of Jiuzhaigou Valley, one of the World Heritage Sites, in July, August and September from 2015 to 2019. Then the characteristics of the impact of different earthquake-induced geohazards on vegetation were discussed, and a vulnerability-resilience assessment system concerning the seismic intensity was proposed. The results show that the NPPmax and NPPmean values in Jiuzhaigou Valley first decreased and then increased and were 151.5-261.9 gC/m(2) and 54.6-116.3 gC/m(2), respectively. The NPP value of more than 70% area was 90-150 gC/m(2) in July. In August, the NPPmean values decreased, and the areas with lower values became larger; the NPPmean values of most areas affected by geohazards were 60-150 gC/m(2). During the earthquake, the NPPmean values of areas hit by geohazards sharply declined by 27.2% (landslide), 22.4% (debris flow) and 15.7% (collapse) compared with those in the same month in 2016. Vegetation in debris flow zones showed a stronger recovery, with a maximum NPP value increase of about 23.0% in September 2017. The vegetation gradually recovered after the earthquake, as indicated by the uptrend of the NPP values in the corresponding period in 2018 and 2019. In general, the reduction magnitude of NPP values decreased year by year in comparison to that in 2015 and 2016, and the decrease slowed down after the earthquake. The vulnerability and resilience index corresponding to the three seismic intensity ranges were 0.470-0.669 and 0.642-0.693, respectively, and those of Jiuzhaigou Valley were 0.473 and 0.671, respectively. The impact coefficient defined to represent the impact of the earthquake on NPP was 0.146-0.213. This paper provides a theoretical reference and guidance for the impact assessment of earthquakes on the ecosystem.

Automated summary

This study assesses the impact of the Jiuzhaigou earthquake on vegetation using the CASA model, and discusses the characteristics of vegetation response to different earthquake-induced geohazards. The results show that vegetation gradually recovered after the earthquake, with varying degrees of impact depending on the type of geohazard.