The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, China
Global greening and its relationship with climate change remain the hot topics in recent years, and are of critical importance for understanding the interactions between the terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle and the climate system. China, especially north China, has contributed a lot to global gree...
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| Format: | Article |
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MDPI AG
2023-09-01
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| Series: | Remote Sensing |
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| Online Access: | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/18/4621 |
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| author | Xuan Guo Qun Guo Zhongmin Hu Shenggong Li Qingwen Min Songlin Mu Chengdong Xu Linli Sun |
| author_facet | Xuan Guo Qun Guo Zhongmin Hu Shenggong Li Qingwen Min Songlin Mu Chengdong Xu Linli Sun |
| author_sort | Xuan Guo |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Global greening and its relationship with climate change remain the hot topics in recent years, and are of critical importance for understanding the interactions between the terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle and the climate system. China, especially north China, has contributed a lot to global greening during the past few decades. As a water-limited ecosystem, human activities, not precipitation amount, were thought as the main contributor to the greening of north China. Considering the importance of precipitation event characteristics (PEC) in the altered precipitation regimes, we integrated long-term normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and meteorological datasets to reveal the role of precipitation regimes, especially PECs, on vegetation growth across temperate grasslands in north China. Accompanied with a significantly decreased growing season precipitation (GSP), NDVI increased significantly in the largest area of the temperate grasslands during 1982–2015, i.e., greening. We found that 28.44% of the area was explained by PECs, including more heavy or extreme precipitation events, alleviated extreme drought, and fewer light events, while only 0.92% of the area was associated with GSP. NDVI did not always increase over the 30 years and there was a decrease during 1996–2005. Taking afforestation projects in desertified lands into account, we found that precipitation, mainly PECs, explained more the increase and decline of NDVI during 1982–1995 and 1996–2005, respectively, while an equivalent explanatory power of precipitation and afforestation projects to the increase in NDVI after 2005. Our study indicates a possible higher productivity under future precipitation regime scenario (e.g., fewer but larger precipitation events) or intensive afforestation activity, implying more carbon sequestration or livestock production of temperate steppe in the future. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-10T22:04:47Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-d4c1d47395f34351b43ea330b83521c2 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2072-4292 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-10T22:04:47Z |
| publishDate | 2023-09-01 |
| publisher | MDPI AG |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Remote Sensing |
| spelling | doaj.art-d4c1d47395f34351b43ea330b83521c22023-11-19T12:50:18ZengMDPI AGRemote Sensing2072-42922023-09-011518462110.3390/rs15184621The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, ChinaXuan Guo0Qun Guo1Zhongmin Hu2Shenggong Li3Qingwen Min4Songlin Mu5Chengdong Xu6Linli Sun7Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, ChinaInstitute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, ChinaKey Laboratory of Agro-Forestry Environmental Processes and Ecological Regulation of Hainan Province, Hainan University, Haikou 570228, ChinaInstitute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, ChinaInstitute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, ChinaBeijing Academy of Social Sciences, Beijing 100101, ChinaInstitute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, ChinaTongliao Meteorological Bureau of Inner Mongolia, Tongliao 028000, ChinaGlobal greening and its relationship with climate change remain the hot topics in recent years, and are of critical importance for understanding the interactions between the terrestrial ecosystem carbon cycle and the climate system. China, especially north China, has contributed a lot to global greening during the past few decades. As a water-limited ecosystem, human activities, not precipitation amount, were thought as the main contributor to the greening of north China. Considering the importance of precipitation event characteristics (PEC) in the altered precipitation regimes, we integrated long-term normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and meteorological datasets to reveal the role of precipitation regimes, especially PECs, on vegetation growth across temperate grasslands in north China. Accompanied with a significantly decreased growing season precipitation (GSP), NDVI increased significantly in the largest area of the temperate grasslands during 1982–2015, i.e., greening. We found that 28.44% of the area was explained by PECs, including more heavy or extreme precipitation events, alleviated extreme drought, and fewer light events, while only 0.92% of the area was associated with GSP. NDVI did not always increase over the 30 years and there was a decrease during 1996–2005. Taking afforestation projects in desertified lands into account, we found that precipitation, mainly PECs, explained more the increase and decline of NDVI during 1982–1995 and 1996–2005, respectively, while an equivalent explanatory power of precipitation and afforestation projects to the increase in NDVI after 2005. Our study indicates a possible higher productivity under future precipitation regime scenario (e.g., fewer but larger precipitation events) or intensive afforestation activity, implying more carbon sequestration or livestock production of temperate steppe in the future.https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/18/4621NDVIgreeninggrowing season precipitation (GSP)precipitation event characteristics (PEC)afforestation projectstemperate grasslands in north China |
| spellingShingle | Xuan Guo Qun Guo Zhongmin Hu Shenggong Li Qingwen Min Songlin Mu Chengdong Xu Linli Sun The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, China Remote Sensing NDVI greening growing season precipitation (GSP) precipitation event characteristics (PEC) afforestation projects temperate grasslands in north China |
| title | The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, China |
| title_full | The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, China |
| title_fullStr | The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, China |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, China |
| title_short | The Effects of Precipitation Event Characteristics and Afforestation on the Greening in Arid Grasslands, China |
| title_sort | effects of precipitation event characteristics and afforestation on the greening in arid grasslands china |
| topic | NDVI greening growing season precipitation (GSP) precipitation event characteristics (PEC) afforestation projects temperate grasslands in north China |
| url | https://www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/15/18/4621 |
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