Spatiotemporal Patterns of Vegetation Greenness Change and Associated Climatic and Anthropogenic Drivers on the Tibetan Plateau during 2000–2015

Remote Sensing

卷:10

Jianshuang Wu¹  Huamin Zhang²  Mingjun Ding²  Lanhui Li³  Linshan Liu³  Jiaxing Zu³  Zhaofeng Wang³  Basanta Paudel³  Yili Zhang³  Shicheng Li⁴ 

[1] Freie Universität Berlin, Institute of Biology, Biodiversity/Theoretical Ecology, 14195 Berlin, Germany;

[2] Key Lab of Poyang Lake Wetland and Watershed Research of Ministry of Education and School of Geography and Environment, Jiangxi Normal University, Nanchang 330028, China;

[3] Key Laboratory of Land Surface Pattern and Simulation, Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, CAS, Beijing 100101, China;

[4] School of Public Administration, China University of Geosciences, Wuhan 430074, China;

关键词: vegetation change;    NDVI;    climate change;    anthropogenic disturbance;    Tibetan Plateau;   

DOI  :  10.3390/rs10101525

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Alpine vegetation on the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is known to be sensitive to both climate change and anthropogenic disturbance. However, the magnitude and patterns of alpine vegetation dynamics and the driving mechanisms behind their variation on the TP remains under debate. In this study, we used updated MODIS Collection 6 Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the Terra satellite combined with linear regression and the Break for Additive Season and Trend model to reanalyze the spatiotemporal patterns of vegetation change on the TP during 2000–2015. We then quantified the responses of vegetation variation to climatic and anthropogenic factors by coupling climatic and human footprint datasets. Results show that growing season NDVI (GNDVI) values increased significantly overall (0.0011 year−1, p < 0.01) during 2000–2015 and that 70.37% of vegetated area on the TP (23.47% significantly with p < 0.05) exhibited greening trends with the exception of the southwest TP. However, vegetation greenness experienced trend shifts from greening to browning in half of the ecosystem zones occurred around 2010, likely induced by spatially heterogeneous temporal trends of climate variables. The vegetation changes in the northeastern and southwestern TP were water limited, the mid-eastern TP exhibited strong temperature responses, and the south of TP was driven by a combination of temperature and solar radiation. Furthermore, we found that, to some extent, anthropogenic disturbances offset climate-driven vegetation greening and aggravated vegetation browning induced by water deficit. These findings suggest that the impact of anthropogenic activities on vegetation change might not overwhelm that of climate change at the region scale.

【 授权许可】

Unknown