At the symposium on grassland vegetation map of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau held by the University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the 17th, Wang Yanfen, a professor of the university, officially released the "Grassland Vegetation Formation Map of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau (1:500000)" (hereinafter referred to as "the new vegetation map"). The new vegetation map finely depicts the spatial distribution patterns of 65 plant communities or groups, revealing the historical changes in the structure of grassland plant communities in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau over the past 40 years, providing direct vegetation geographic evidence for the trend of "warming and wetting" in the region. The Qinghai Tibet Plateau is known as the "Roof of the World" and the "Water Tower of Asia", and is an important ecological security barrier in China. The ecosystem in this region is mainly composed of grasslands and belongs to the sensitive and ecologically fragile areas of global climate change. In the past 40 years, with the intensification of climate change and human activities, the grassland vegetation on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau has undergone significant changes, and the original vegetation map is no longer able to accurately reflect the current plant community structure and function. The key research and development project "Evolution Law and Mechanism of Typical Alpine Ecosystems" launched in 2016 and the second comprehensive scientific survey of the Qinghai Tibet Plateau launched in 2019 have provided new opportunities for the drawing of the new vegetation map. Through the new vegetation map, the research team identified a total of 65 types of formations or groups, among which the five most widely distributed formations are alpine Kobresia meadow, purple needle grass grassland, dwarf Kobresia meadow, hanging spike alkali grass meadow, and linear leaf Kobresia meadow. Compared with the previously published 1:1 million "Vegetation Map of China", the research team has discovered changes in vegetation structure on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau over the past 40 years. Specifically, in the past 40 years, the proportion of alpine meadows in grasslands has significantly increased from 50% to 69%, which strongly confirms the trend of warming and humidification in the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. The reasons for the changes in different grasslands are different: the changes in the purple clover grassland are mainly influenced by climate, while the changes in the alpine Kobresia meadow may be more related to human activities; Meanwhile, the dominant position of these two types of grasslands in their respective regions has significantly increased. It is reported that in the process of drawing the new vegetation map, the research team based on the theory of multiple tops and integrated multi-source and multi-phase remote sensing data to systematically characterize the structure and habitat characteristics of plant communities. At the same time, the deep application of artificial intelligence technology effectively excavates and integrates multidimensional information provided by tens of thousands of field survey samples and hundreds of remote sensing layers, breaking through the difficulties of traditional methods in accurately identifying and classifying communities in complex high-altitude environments. Compared to traditional mapping methods, the new vegetation map focuses more on the intrinsic relationship between plant community attributes and habitat attributes, ensuring the objectivity and efficiency of the mapping process. This innovative method is the first to clearly demonstrate the spatial characteristics of grassland plant community structure based on communities at the regional scale. Experts attending the meeting believe that the completion of the new vegetation map not only accurately depicts the spatial distribution of plant communities, innovatively integrates artificial intelligence and traditional mapping methods, but also opens up a new era of accurate vegetation mapping, laying the foundation for research on vegetation changes on the Qinghai Tibet Plateau. (New Society)