Large hydropower reservoirs in extreme climatic conditions often face fragile ecosystems and frequent geological disasters. The use of advanced remote sensing technologies to reveal the spatiotemporal distribution of geological hazards has become a major research focus. This study focused on the Xiaowan Hydropower Reservoirs Geological deformation was monitored using Sentinel-1 A data and SBAS-InSAR techniques. Additionally, the geographic detector model and the Continuous Change Detection and Classification (CCDC) algorithm were integrated to analyze the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation cover and its relationships with geological disaster density, elevation, precipitation, slope, aspect, temperature, and distance to rivers. The results show that: (1) Precipitation, temperature, and geological disaster density are the three primary drivers influencing vegetation cover in the study area. (2) The impact of climate change on vegetation in the study area has been relatively gradual. Among climatic factors, reduced precipitation is the primary driver of vegetation degradation. Following the degradation of high vegetation cover areas, the exposed or disturbed surfaces tend to recover over time, often transitioning into regions with moderate vegetation cover. (3) During ongoing geological deformation, for every 10 mm/year increase in deformation rate, vegetation growth is disturbed by a factor between 0.104 and 0.648. After stabilization, areas with a disturbance amplitude between 2.5 and 12 typically experience vegetation recovery exceeding pre-disturbance levels. However, when the disturbance amplitude exceeds 8, the vegetation’s recovery capacity is irreversibly impaired, leading to a long-term decline in recovery potential.
Wu et al. (Mon,) studied this question.