Ecological quality of China’s vegetation hits new high in 2021

The ecological quality of China’s vegetation reached a new high in 2021, according to a national ecological and meteorological report released by the China Meteorological Administration (CMA) for 2021.

Photo taken on July 22, 2021 shows a summer landscape of the Chenbarhu Banner Grassland in Hulun Buir, north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region. (Xinhua/Lian Zhen)

The report indicated that last year, the national vegetation ecological quality index, a synthetic calculation of the coverage and the carbon fixation ability of vegetation, reached 68.8, up 7.7 percent compared with the average level between 2000 and 2020.

The ecological quality of China’s forest, grassland, farmland and desert systems all reached a relatively high level in 2021, according to the evaluation results.

The evaluation results also indicated that between 2000 and 2021, the hydrothermal resources in northeast China were of a good quality, and the ecological functions of forests and important wetlands in the region were improved.

Last year, most areas of the Qinling Mountains saw abundant precipitation, with both the vegetation net primary productivity and the vegetation coverage in the region being higher than the average levels during previous years.

China has carried out various ecological conservation and restoration projects to improve the ecological functions of vegetation, thus providing important support for the rise of the ecological quality of China’s vegetation, according to Qian Shuan, a senior engineer with the ecological and agricultural meteorological office of the CMA.