Past and projected future patterns of fractional vegetation coverage in China

Zijie Kong; Hongbo Ling; Mingjiang Deng; Feifei Han; Junjie Yan; Xiaoya Deng; Zikang Wang; Yuanzhi Ma; Wenqi Wang

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166133

Past and projected future patterns of fractional vegetation coverage in China

Sci Total Environ. 2023 Dec 1:902:166133. doi: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166133. Epub 2023 Aug 9.

Authors

Zijie Kong¹, Hongbo Ling², Mingjiang Deng¹, Feifei Han³, Junjie Yan⁴, Xiaoya Deng⁵, Zikang Wang⁶, Yuanzhi Ma⁶, Wenqi Wang⁶

Affiliations

¹ State Key Laboratory of Hydraulic Engineering Simulation and Safety, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China; School of Civil Engineering, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
² Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Urumqi 830011, China. Electronic address: linghongbo0929@163.com.
³ College of Water Sciences, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China.
⁴ Institute of Resources and Ecology, Yili Normal University, Yining 835000, China.
⁵ Department of Water Resources, China Institute of Water Resources and Hydropower Research, Beijing 100038, China.
⁶ Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Urumqi 830011, China.

PMID: 37567294
DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2023.166133

Abstract

With the intensifying climate change and the strengthening ecosystem management, quantifying the past and predicting the future influence of these two factors on vegetation change patterns in China need to be analyzed urgently. By constructing a framework model to accurately identify fractional vegetation coverage (FVC) change patterns, we found that FVC in China from 1982 to 2018 mainly showed linear increase (29.5 %) or Gaussian decrease (27.4 %). FVC variation was mainly affected by soil moisture in the Qi-North region and by vapor pressure deficit in other regions. The influence of environmental change on FVC, except for Yang-Qi region in the southwest (-2.0 %), played a positive role, and weakened from the middle (Hu-Yang region: 2.7 %) to the northwest (Qi-North region: 2.4 %) to the east (Hu-East region: 0.8 %). Based on five machine learning algorithms, it was predicted that under four Shared Socioeconomic Pathways (SSPs, including SSP126、SSP245、SSP370、SSP585) from 2019 to 2060, FVC would maintain an upward trend, except for the east, where FVC would rapidly decline after 2039. FVC in the eastern region experienced a transition from past growth to future decline, suggesting that the focus of future ecosystem management should be on this region.

Keywords: Change patterns; Ecosystem management; Environmental change; Fractional vegetation cover; Future trends.