Disentangling climatic and anthropogenic contributions to nonlinear dynamics of alpine grassland productivity on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Wu, Jian; Li, Meng; Zhang, Xianzhou; Fiedler, Sebastian; Gao, Qingzhu; Zhou, Yuting; Cao, Wei; Hassan, Waseem; Mărgărint, Mihai Ciprian; Tarolli, Paolo; Tietjen, Britta

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111875

Cited by 55 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 93 publications

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“…Wu et al. (2021) reported that accelerating warming and greening took place in 76.2% and 78.8% of alpine grasslands on the QTP, respectively. The human influence was strengthening and weakening in 15.5% and 14.3% of grassland pixels, respectively (Wu et al., 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Based on the relationship between actual and potential NPP, suggested that human activity intensity decreased by 16.1% from 2000 to 2017 across the alpine grasslands, which might be driven by recent ecological conservation policies and reductions in livestock numbers in TAR and Qinghai province. Wu et al (2021) reported that accelerating warming and greening took place in 76.2% and 78.8% of alpine grasslands on the QTP, respectively. The human influence was strengthening and weakening in 15.5% and 14.3% of grassland pixels, respectively (Wu et al, 2021).…”

Section: Anthropogenic Driversmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Wu et al (2021) reported that accelerating warming and greening took place in 76.2% and 78.8% of alpine grasslands on the QTP, respectively. The human influence was strengthening and weakening in 15.5% and 14.3% of grassland pixels, respectively (Wu et al, 2021). Nevertheless, these numeric disentangling methods are always confined to different resources of satellites and time spans, and will get completely opposite conclusions in the same region (Li et al, 2018a;Wessels et al, 2007).…”

Section: Anthropogenic Driversmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Dual Influence of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Activities on the Spatiotemporal Vegetation Dynamics Over the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau From 1981 to 2015

Wei

Wang

et al. 2022

Earth's Future

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With more and more reports of climatic fluctuations and catastrophes, global warming has gained more worldwide attention in recent years (IPCC, 2007(IPCC, , 2014. Currently, the representative climate indicators, for example, snow, glaciers, permafrost, and alpine tundra particularly in high altitudes and latitudes, have proven more sensitive and vulnerable to climate change than other land surface components (

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Anthropogenic Driversmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Anthropogenic Driversmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Dual Influence of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Activities on the Spatiotemporal Vegetation Dynamics Over the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau From 1981 to 2015

Wei

Wang

et al. 2022

Earth's Future

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“…Changes in precipitation, runoff, and permafrost degradation are the main influencing factors for wetland hydrothermal dynamics in the SAYR (Wang et al, 2001;Wu et al, 2018;Wu et al, 2021). Persistent climate warming has enhanced land surface evaporation, lowered the burial depth of the permafrost table, and has deepened the active layer and the aeration/vadose zone, resulting in a deeper groundwater table, causing the continuously distributed wetlands to become fragmented or even completely disappear (drained) (Li et al, 2016c;Li G. et al, 2020c).…”

Section: Shrinking Of Wetlands and Lakesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Impacts of Permafrost Degradation on Hydrology and Vegetation in the Source Area of the Yellow River on Northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Southwest China

Jin

Luo

et al. 2022

Front. Earth Sci.

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Under a persistent warming climate and increasing human activities, permafrost in the Source Area of the Yellow River (SAYR) has been degrading regionally, resulting in many eco-environmental problems. This paper reviews the changes in air temperature and precipitation over the past 60 years and presents the distribution and degradation of alpine permafrost in the SAYR. The review is focused on the permafrost degradation–induced changes in hydrology, wetlands, thermokarst lakes, ponds, and vegetation. Mean annual air temperatures have been rising at an average rate of 0.4°C/10a over the past 60 years, while precipitation has increased only slightly (16 mm/10a). Borehole temperature monitoring at the depth of 15 m shows the permafrost warming rates of 0.01–0.21°C/10a in the Headwater Aera of the Yellow River. As a result of permafrost thaw, the amount of surface waters has declined while groundwater storage has increased. Due to permafrost degradation, the supra-permafrost water table lowers gradually, resulting in a reduction in areal extents of wetlands and lakes in the SAYR. We further renamed the concept of the burial depth of the ecologically-safe supra-permafrost water table, the minimum depth of the groundwater table for sustaining the normal growth of alpine grassland vegetation, for the SAYR to describe the relationship between the lowering permafrost table and succeeding alpine vegetation. Furthermore, we recommended more studies focusing on snow cover and carbon stock and emissions related to permafrost degradation under a warming climate. We also advised to timely establish the long-term monitoring networks for the rapidly changing mountain cryosphere, alpine ecology, alpine hydrology, eco-hydrology, cryo-hydrogeology, and carbon fluxes. Moreover, process-based models should be developed and improved to better simulate and predict the responses of alpine ecosystem changes to the interacting cryospheric and other environmental variables and their ecological and ecohydrological impacts in the SAYR and downstream Yellow River basins. This study can help better manage the ecological and hydrological environments in the Upper Yellow River that are sensitive to changes in the alpine climate and cryosphere.

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“…The potential status of the climax community was also used to build a benchmark under climate change [38] in the short term. Thus, the measurements based on such benchmarks are limited in practical application significance [28,33,39] and theoretically include both the human impacts during the assessment period and the historically accumulative ones. Besides, the impacts of natural resilience are also included in these assessment results [35].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Multi-Perspective Assessment Method with a Dynamic Benchmark for Human Activity Impacts on Alpine Ecosystem under Climate Change

et al. 2022

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Intense human activities and rapid climate changes both have obvious impacts on alpine ecosystems. However, the magnitudes and directions of the impacts by these two drivers remain uncertain due to a lack of a reasonable assessment method to distinguish between them. The impact of natural resilience is also generally included in the dynamics of a disturbed ecosystem and is liable to be mixed into the impact of human activity. It is urgent that we quantitatively discriminate human activity impacts on the ecosystem under climate change, especially for fast-developing alpine regions. Here, we propose an assessment method to determine human activity impacts under a dynamic climate, taking the potential net primary production (NPP) of an ecosystem as a benchmark. The potential NPP (NPPP) series under the changing climate was retrieved by an improved integrated biosphere simulator based on the initial disturbed ecosystem status of the assessment period. The actual NPP (NPPA) series monitored by remote sensing was considered as the results derived from the joint impacts of climate change, natural resilience and human activity. Then, the impact of human activity was quantified as the difference between the NPPP and NPPA. The contributions of human activity and natural forces to ecosystem NPP dynamics were then calculated separately and employed to explore the dominant driver(s). This assessment method was demonstrated in a typical alpine ecosystem in Northwest China. The results indicate that this method capably revealed the positive impacts of local afforestation and land-use optimization and the negative impacts caused by grazing during the assessment period of 2001–2017. This assessment method provides a quantitative reference for assessing the performances of ecological protections or human damage to alpine ecosystems at the regional scale.

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Disentangling climatic and anthropogenic contributions to nonlinear dynamics of alpine grassland productivity on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

Cited by 55 publications

References 93 publications

Dual Influence of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Activities on the Spatiotemporal Vegetation Dynamics Over the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau From 1981 to 2015

Dual Influence of Climate Change and Anthropogenic Activities on the Spatiotemporal Vegetation Dynamics Over the Qinghai‐Tibetan Plateau From 1981 to 2015

Impacts of Permafrost Degradation on Hydrology and Vegetation in the Source Area of the Yellow River on Northeastern Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, Southwest China

A Multi-Perspective Assessment Method with a Dynamic Benchmark for Human Activity Impacts on Alpine Ecosystem under Climate Change

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