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Spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation in China from 1981 to 2100 from the perspective of hydrothermal factor analysis

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Abstract

The increased growth of vegetation has the potential to slow global climate warming. Therefore, analyzing and predicting the response assessment of Chinese vegetation to climate change is of great significance to studies of global warming. In this paper, we examine the spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation leaf area index (LAI) values in China from 1981 to 2017 and their correlations with meteorological (hydrothermal) factors based on trend analysis and correlation analysis. We further construct an LAI prediction model based on hydrothermal conditions. The climate data obtained under different scenarios in the CMIP5 and CMIP6 climate models were used to predict the dynamic change trend of vegetation LAI from 2021 to 2100. The results show that most areas of China (72.82%) showed an improving trend in vegetation LAI from 1981 to 2017, during which the annual average LAI value increased at a rate of 0.0029 year−1. Vegetation LAI in China was significantly correlated with climatic factors (temperature, precipitation, and evapotranspiration), and the LAI prediction model constructed based on hydrothermal conditions had a high accuracy (Pearson’s Cor value is 0.9729). From 2021 to 2100, approximately 2/3 of China’s vegetation LAI area showed an improvement trend, and the impact of climate change on vegetation LAI predictions under the high emission scenario was greater than that under the low emission scenario. This research can provide a basis for studies on the climatic drivers of vegetation change and the global vegetation dynamic model.

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Data availability

The datasets used and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Acknowledgements

We acknowledge the data support from the “National Earth System Science Data Center, National Science & Technology Infrastructure of China (http://www.geodata.cn)”.

Funding

This study was supported by the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (8192037), Key Research and Development Program of Guangxi (AB18050014), and National Natural Science Foundation of China (41701391).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. College of Geoscience and Surveying Engineering, China University of Mining & Technology, Beijing, 100083, China

    Guangchao Li, Wei Chen, Xuepeng Zhang, Pengshuai Bi, Xinyu Shi & Zhe Wang

  2. College of Information Science and Engineering, Henan University of Technology, Zhengzhou, 450001, China

    Zhen Yang

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  1. Guangchao Li
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  2. Wei Chen
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  3. Xuepeng Zhang
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  4. Pengshuai Bi
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Contributions

Guangchao Li: software, validation, data curation, writing—original draft preparation. Wei Chen: conceptualization, methodology, software, investigation, writing—original draft preparation, writing-reviewing and editing, supervision. Xuepeng Zhang: formal analysis, visualization, investigation, validation. Pengshuai Bi: formal analysis, investigation, validation. Zhen Yang: writing-reviewing and editing. Xinyu Shi: reviewing and editing, Zhe Wang: software, investigation.

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Correspondence to Wei Chen.

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Li, G., Chen, W., Zhang, X. et al. Spatiotemporal dynamics of vegetation in China from 1981 to 2100 from the perspective of hydrothermal factor analysis. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 14219–14230 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16664-7

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