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Human activity impacts on the stem radial growth of Populus euphratica riparian forests in China’s Ejina Oasis, using tree-ring analysis

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The heterogeneous stem radial growth of Populus euphratica and its correlation with hydrology and climate factors were investigated by a tree-ring study in Ejina Oasis in Northwest China.

Abstract

Over the last several decades, riparian forests in Northwest China have been extremely vulnerable to the increasing pressures from human activity and climate change. However, it is unclear how forests correlate with these influences over time and on a wide scale. In the present study, we developed 28 tree-ring chronologies of Populus euphratica in the Ejina Oasis, in the lower reaches of Northwestern China’s Heihe River, to evaluate the oasis-scale riparian forest growth variation and its correlation with the runoff regulation. We identified three hydrologic periods using regime-shift analysis: a natural runoff period from 1954 to 1989, when the oasis was sustained by natural river flows; a degradation period from 1990 to 2002, when excessive upstream withdrawals of runoff decreased flows to the oasis; and a recovery period, from 2003 to 2010, when water allocation projects restored flows. In general, stem radial growth of poplar trees in the oasis showed decreasing and increasing trends in the degradation period and recovery period, respectively, with high spatial heterogeneity in each period. Our analysis of the relationship between the chronologies and corresponding hydrologic and climatic data revealed that the runoff-recharged hyporheic groundwater depth was the major factor that limited tree stem radial growth. Thus, it is important to allocate water between the middle and lower reaches, and inside the lower reaches, to mitigate or prevent the adverse effects of low runoff. Our study also demonstrates that researchers must carefully consider the high spatial heterogeneity during dendrochronological research in an arid riparian forest.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 91125026, No. 41471082) and the STS Project of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (KFJ-EW-STS-00502). We thank Haoxu Li, Junjun Yang, Jun Du, and Heng Wei for their help during the field work and data analysis.

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  1. Key Laboratory of Ecohydrology of Inland River Basin, Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Donggang West Road 320, Lanzhou, 730000, Gansu, China

    Xiaomei Peng, Shengchun Xiao, Guodong Cheng, Honglang Xiao & Quanyan Tian

  2. University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Xiaomei Peng & Quanyan Tian

  3. State Key Laboratory of Vegetation and Environmental Change, Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100093, China

    Qibing Zhang

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  1. Xiaomei Peng
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Peng, X., Xiao, S., Cheng, G. et al. Human activity impacts on the stem radial growth of Populus euphratica riparian forests in China’s Ejina Oasis, using tree-ring analysis. Trees 31, 379–392 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00468-015-1287-z

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