Detection and attribution of vegetation greening trend in China over the last 30 years

Piao, Shilong; Yin, Guodong; Tan, Jennifer; Cheng, Lei; Huang, Mengtian; Li, Yue; Liu, Ronggao; Mao, Jiafu; Myneni, Ranga B.; Peng, Shushi; Poulter, Benjamin; Shi, Xiaoying; Xiao, Zhiqiang; Zeng, Ning; Zeng, Zhenzhong; Wang, Ying‐Ping

doi:10.1111/gcb.12795

Cited by 699 publications

(460 citation statements)

References 67 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

429

Contrasting

Unclassified

Order By: Relevance

“…With the multiple regression analysis, this study is among the first to reveal that the growing season NDVI in northern grassland was mostly dominated by precipitation while that in the southern forest was mostly dominated by temperature. Nevertheless, the variation of vegetation growth cannot be fully explained by the relationship with climatic drivers, other factors such as time lag [19], precipitation intensity, altitude [35], CO 2 concentration and nitrogen deposition [57] can also play vital roles in trends of vegetation growth, about which further study is needed.…”

Section: Relationships Between Ndvi and Multiple Climate Dirversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Natural Vegetation Dynamics to Climate Drivers in China from 1982 to 2011

Liu

Lei

2015

Remote Sensing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

This study investigated the spatiotemporal variation of vegetation growth and the influence of climatic drivers from 1982 to 2011 across China using datasets from the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and climatic drivers. Long term trends, significance and abrupt change points of interannual NDVI time series were analyzed. We applied both simple regression and multi-regression models to quantify the effects of climatic drivers on vegetation growth and compare their relative contributions. Results show that on average, the growing season NDVI significantly increased by 0.0007 year −1 , with 76.5% of the research area showed increasing NDVI from 1982 to 2011. Seasonally, NDVI increased at high rates during the spring and autumn while changed slightly during the summer. At a national scale, the growing season NDVI was significantly and positively correlated to temperature and precipitation, with temperature being the dominant factor. At regional scales, the growing season NDVI was dominated by increasing temperature in most forest-covered areas in southern China and dominated by precipitation in most grassland in northern China. Within the past three decades, the increasing trend of national mean NDVI abruptly changed in 1994, slowing down from 0.0008 year −1 to 0.0003 year −1 . To be regional specific, the growing season NDVI in forest covered southern China has accelerated together with temperature since mid 1990s, while parts of the grassland in northern China have undergone stalled NDVI trends corresponding to slowed temperature increment and dropped precipitation since around 2000. Typical region analysis suggested that apart from

show abstract

Section: Relationships Between Ndvi and Multiple Climate Dirversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Responses of Natural Vegetation Dynamics to Climate Drivers in China from 1982 to 2011

Liu

Lei

2015

Remote Sensing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Among the various ecosystem indicators, vegetation cover is considered to be a primary indicator when assessing the ecological environment as well as for social and economic sustainability development [12]. At present, many aspects of vegetation dynamics still remain poorly understood, although numerous studies have considered the associations between vegetation dynamics and climate change [13,14]. Therefore, achieving a good understanding of vegetation dynamics and their driving forces is a major objective in the environmental sciences, particularly when studying the effects of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems [15].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Changes in Growing Season Vegetation and Their Associated Driving Forces in China during 2001–2012

Liu

Zhu

et al. 2015

Remote Sensing

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:In recent decades, the monitoring of vegetation dynamics has become crucial because of its important role in terrestrial ecosystems. In this study, a satellite-derived normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) was combined with climate factors to explore the spatiotemporal patterns of vegetation change during the growing season, as well as their driving forces in China from 2001 to 2012. Our results showed that the growing season NDVI increased continuously during 2001-2012, with a linear trend of 1.4%/10 years (p < 0.01). The NDVI in north China mainly exhibited an increasing spatial trend, but this trend was generally decreasing in south China. The vegetation dynamics were mainly at a moderate intensity level in both the increasing and decreasing areas. The significantly increasing trend in the NDVI for arid and semi-arid areas of northwest China was attributed mainly to an increasing trend in the NDVI during the spring, whereas that for the north and northeast of China was due to an increasing trend in the NDVI during the summer and autumn. Different vegetation types exhibited great variation in their trends, where the grassforb community had the highest linear trend of 2%/10 years (p < 0.05), followed by meadow, and needle-leaf forest with the lowest increasing trend, i.e., a linear trend of 0.3%/10 years. OPEN ACCESSRemote Sens. 2015, 7 15518Our results also suggested that the cumulative precipitation during the growing season had a dominant effect on the vegetation dynamics compared with temperature for all six vegetation types. In addition, the response of different vegetation types to climate variability exhibited considerable differences. In terms of anthropological activity, our statistical analyses showed that there was a strong correlation between the cumulative afforestation area and NDVI during the study period, especially in a pilot region for ecological restoration, thereby suggesting the important role of ecological restoration programs in ecological recovery throughout China in the last decade.

show abstract

“…T he impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities on Earth's vegetation and ecosystems have been in the spotlight of science in the past decades [1][2][3][4][5][6] . With increasing climate variability and more frequent occurrences of extreme events expected in the future 7 , research has targeted the sensitivity of ecosystems 8,9 .…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Increased vegetation growth and carbon stock in China karst via ecological engineering

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

T he impacts of climate change and anthropogenic activities on Earth's vegetation and ecosystems have been in the spotlight of science in the past decades [1][2][3][4][5][6] . With increasing climate variability and more frequent occurrences of extreme events expected in the future 7 , research has targeted the sensitivity of ecosystems 8,9 . At the same time, recent studies have shown globally increasing leaf area index (LAI; a proxy for green vegetation cover) 10 , and aboveground biomass carbon (ABC) 11 , also known as the greening Earth 10,12 . Dynamic vegetation models and Earth observation studies reveal climatic and atmospheric changes as the main drivers of large scale increases in LAI 10,13 . On the contrary, the anthropogenic footprint is usually found to cause land degradation and deforestation 13,14 , and only a few studies find a direct positive effect of management on vegetation cover and biomass trends 2,11,15 . Although ecological conservation projects aim at increasing biodiversity, carbon sequestration and vegetation cover 16,17 , the success of such conservation efforts is not easily quantifiable, and the spatial footprint of projects is not always commensurable with contemporary satellite-and modelling-based monitoring methods. Adaptation and mitigation strategies to climate change should be anchored in knowledge on how ecosystems respond to climatic and anthropogenic disturbances, but at present it is not known whether conservation projects impact on the ability of vegetation to alleviate the effects of climate change at large scales.China's ecological restoration projects (for example, the Natural Forest Protection Project, the Grain to Green Project, and the Karst Rocky Desertification Restoration Project) are considered 'megaengineering' activities and the most ambitious afforestation and conservation projects in human history [16][17][18][19] . The highly sensitive and vulnerable karst ecosystem in southwest China is one of the largest exposed carbonate rock areas (more than 0.54 million km 2 ) in the world. This area hosts 220 million people 20,21 and has been selected as a major target of restoration projects. Descriptions as early as the seventeenth century reported the rocky karst mountains as an area of sparse forest or vegetation cover 22 , and accelerating desertification has been reported during the past half century, caused by the increasing intensity of human exploitation of natural resources [21][22][23][24] . As a result, approximately 0.13 million km 2 of karst areas previously covered by vegetation and soil were turned into a rocky landscape. To combat this severe form of land degradation and to relieve poverty, more than 130 billion yuan (~19 billion USD) have been invested in mitigation initiatives since the end of the 1990s 24 . The largest programme implemented, the Grain to Green Project, offers grain, cash and free seedlings as compensation for rural households to re-establish forests, shrub and/or grassland 24 . The costs of ecological engineering projects as a clima...

show abstract

Detection and attribution of vegetation greening trend in China over the last 30 years

Cited by 699 publications

References 67 publications

Responses of Natural Vegetation Dynamics to Climate Drivers in China from 1982 to 2011

Responses of Natural Vegetation Dynamics to Climate Drivers in China from 1982 to 2011

Changes in Growing Season Vegetation and Their Associated Driving Forces in China during 2001–2012

Increased vegetation growth and carbon stock in China karst via ecological engineering

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About