Vegetation response to climate zone dynamics and its impacts on surface soil water content and albedo in China

Yanlong Guan; Hongwei Lu; Chuang Yin; Yuxuan Xue; Yelin Jiang; Yu Kang; Li He; Janne Heiskanen

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141537

Vegetation response to climate zone dynamics and its impacts on surface soil water content and albedo in China

Sci Total Environ. 2020 Dec 10:747:141537. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141537. Epub 2020 Aug 5.

Authors

Yanlong Guan¹, Hongwei Lu², Chuang Yin³, Yuxuan Xue⁴, Yelin Jiang⁵, Yu Kang⁶, Li He⁷, Janne Heiskanen⁸

Affiliations

¹ Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Process, Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China; School of Renewable Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China; Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Finland.
² Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Process, Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China; School of Renewable Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China. Electronic address: luhw@igsnrr.ac.cn.
³ School of Renewable Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China.
⁴ Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Process, Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China.
⁵ Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA.
⁶ School of Renewable Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China; Key Laboratory of Water Cycle and Related Land Surface Process, Institute of Geographic Science and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Science, Beijing, China.
⁷ State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety at Tianjin University, Tianjin, China; School of Renewable Energy, North China Electric Power University, Beijing, China.
⁸ Department of Geosciences and Geography, University of Helsinki, Finland; Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research, Faculty of Science, University of Helsinki, Finland.

PMID: 32795808
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.141537

Abstract

Extensive research has focused on the response of vegetation to climate change, including potential mechanisms and resulting impacts. Although many studies have explored the relationship between vegetation and climate change in China, research on spatiotemporal distribution changes of climate regimes using natural vegetation as an indicator is still lacking. Further, limited information is available on the response of vegetation to shifts in China's regional climatic zones. In this study, we applied Mann-Kendall, and correlation analysis to examine the variabilities in temperature, precipitation, surface soil water, normalised difference vegetation index (NDVI), and albedo in China from 1982 to 2012. Our results indicate significant shifts in the distribution of Köppen-Geiger climate classes in China from 12.08% to 18.98% between 1983 and 2012 at a significance level of 0.05 (MK). The percentage areas in the arid and continental zones expanded at a rate of 0.004%/y and 0.12%/y, respectively, while the percentage area in the temperate and alpine zones decreased by -0.05%/y and - 0.07%/y. Sensitivity fitting results between simulated and observed changes identified temperature to be a dominant control on the dynamics of temperate (r² = 0.98) and alpine (r² = 0.968) zones, while precipitation was the dominant control on the changes of arid (r² = 0.856) and continental (r² = 0.815) zones. The response of the NDVI to albedo infers a more pronounced radiative response in temperate (r = -0.82, p < .01) and alpine (r = -0.476, p < .05) compared to arid and continental zones. Furthermore, we identified more pronounced monthly increasing trends in NDVI and soil water, corresponding to weak changes in albedo during vegetation growing periods. Our results suggest that climate zone shifting has considerable impacts on the vegetation in China and will have larger ecological impacts through radiative or non-radiative feedback mechanisms in future warming scenarios.

Keywords: Albedo; Climate zones; NDVI; Precipitation; Temperature.