Evaluating the vegetation restoration potential achievement of ecological projects: A case study of Yan’an, China

•Vegetation restoration potential achievement (VRPA) was proposed using habitat theory and spatial sliding window model.•The growth rate of VRPA degree distinguishes between resource endowment and vegetation restoration.•The growth rate of VRPA degree better reflects differences from land use policy and its application. Evaluating the effects of ecological projects is important for summarizing past experience and for exploring more effective ways to implement land use policies in the future. The base of ecological restoration is vegetation restoration. Consequently, previous studies have predominantly focused on ecological restoration from the view of vegetation coverage improvement (i.e., the growth of a vegetation index). However, vegetation coverage also reflects geographical differences in natural environmental factors. Thus, vegetation index growth rates reflect, to a large extent, differences in resource endowment, rather than in human effort. Using habitat theory and a spatial sliding window model, this study proposes the concept of vegetation restoration potential achievement (VRPA). Taking ecological restoration practices in Yan’an, China, since 1999 as an example, we evaluate the effect of ecological projects in terms of both a vegetation index and VRPA. The results show that the latter can effectively weaken the impact of resource endowment differences and highlight human factors (i.e., the ecological policy itself and its implementation). This approach improves land use policy evaluation by constructing a novel indicator. It is expected that this method will provide better support for regulating ecological restoration through land use policies.