Spatial-temporal dynamics of transboundary forest disturbance-recovery and its influencing factors in the central Himalayas

Transboundary forests in the Himalayas are one of the world's biodiversity hotspots, but exploring the patterns and influencing factors related to forest disturbance-recovery is still limited. In this study, we used a random forests model, a LandTrendr temporal segmentation algorithm and geographical detector to investigate the spatial and temporal evolution characteristics of forest disturbance and recovery and their influencing factors in the central Himalayas from 1995 to 2018. The results showed that forest disturbance was dominant (∼2.94 × 10 4 km 2 ) and greater than recovery (∼0.56 × 10 4 km 2 ). Both disturbance and recovery showed a significant decreasing trend (p