Geologic factors leadingly drawing the macroecological pattern of rocky desertification in southwest China

Rocky desertification (RD) is a special process of land deterioration in karst topography, with a view of bedrock exposure and an effect of ecological degradation. Among the three largest karst regions in the world, southwest China boasts the largest RD area and highest diversity of karst landscapes. However, inefficient field surveying tends to restrict earlier studies of RD to local areas, and the high complexity of karst geomorphology in southwest China further lead to the shortage of the knowledge about its macroecological pattern so far. To address this gap, this study innovatively took county as the unit to statistically explore the links between the 2008-censused distributions of county-level RD in southwest China and its potential impact factors of three kinds (geologic, climatic, and anthropogenic), all transformed into the same mapping frame. Spatial pattern analyses based on spatial statistics and artificial interpretation unveiled the macroscopic characteristics of RD spatial patterns, and attribution analyses based on correlation analysis and dominance analysis exposed the links of the impact factors to RD and their contributions in deciding the macroscopic pattern of RD. The results suggested that geologic factors play a first role in drawing the macroecological pattern of RD, also for the slight-, moderate-, and severe-level RD scenarios, in southwest China. Despite this inference somehow collides with the popular awareness that anthropogenic factors like human activities are leadingly responsible for the RD-relevant losses, the findings are of practical implications in guiding making the macroscopic policies for mitigating RD degradation and advancing its environmental restoration.