Abstract: Understanding the distribution, characteristics, and changing trend and persistence of grassland degradation and revealing its mechanism on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau can provide scientific basis for effective grassland management and conservation. We selected grassland coverage as the remote sensing monitoring index to establish the remote sensing monitoring and evaluation index system of grassland degradation and evaluate grassland degradation during 2016 to 2020 on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The changing trend and persistence of grassland coverage were analyzed using linear regression and Hurst index analysis on a long time series scale (1982-2020). The partial correlation analysis was used to examine the influence of climate on grassland degradation. The results showed that grassland degradation reached 24.3% during 2016 to 2020, which was mainly light and moderate degradation, and largely distributed in low altitude and high fractional vegetation cover areas. From 1982 to 2020, grassland coverage tended to increase in the north, west and southwest, and decreased in the east and center of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. The Hurst index of grassland coverage was less than 0.5 in 98.1% of the total grassland, indicating grassland coverage showed negatively persistent. The partial correlation coefficient between grassland coverage and precipitation (0.096) was higher than that of temperature (-0.033). About 16.0% area was dominated by temperature, which was mainly distributed in the central and southeast. About 12.2% area was dominated by precipitation, which was distributed in the northeast and west of the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau.

Key words: grassland degradation, coverage, climate factor, Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau