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Remote sensing of water use efficiency in Southwest China’s karst area

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Abstract

As the largest contiguous karst area in China, the southwestern karst area is a typical ecologically fragile area affecting local vegetation dynamics. Ecosystem water use efficiency (WUE) is an important factor reflecting the ability of vegetation to produce organic matter with a limited water supply. Therefore, determining the WUE variation trends in this ecologically fragile region is important. In this paper, we used MODIS remote sensing datasets, meteorological data, and land cover data to analyze the spatiotemporal changes in vegetation water use efficiency in the southwestern karst region from 2001 to 2017. We also further quantitatively analyzed the effects of climate change and human activities on the spatial and temporal patterns of vegetation WUE in the study area. The main conclusions were as follows. (1) From 2001 to 2017, in terms of temporal characteristics, the interannual variation in WUE fluctuated greatly, ranging from 1.33 to 1.51 g C kg−1 H2O, with a multiyear average of 1.43 g C kg−1 H2O and an average rate of change of − 0.0046 g C kg−1 H2O year−1. In terms of spatial characteristics, areas with a higher WUE were concentrated in central Sichuan and northeastern Yunnan. (2) The annual average WUE of each vegetation type decreased in the following order: evergreen coniferous forest > evergreen broad-leaved forest > mixed forest > deciduous broad-leaved forest > cultivated land > deciduous coniferous forest > grassland > cultivated land and natural vegetation > shrub forest. (3) The vegetation WUE of 70.66% in this area was positively correlated with temperature. Additionally, 79.68% of the vegetation WUE was negatively correlated with precipitation. The relative contribution rates of climate change and human activities to the change trend in WUE were 15% and 85%, respectively. Compared with WUE results in other studies, the WUE of different karst landform areas obtained in this study was quite different, indicating that the geological and landform features of the karst area are complex. Our study provides scientific support for local vegetation restoration and protection policies and promotes the understanding of the principle of the carbon–water cycle in karst areas.

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Data availability

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

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Funding

This study was supported by Guangxi Key Science and Technology Innovation Base on Karst Dynamics (No. KDL & Guangxi202202), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (2022YJSDC14), Beijing Natural Science Foundation (8192037), Key Research and Development Program of Guangxi (AB18050014), National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41701391), and Yue Qi Young Scholar Project, CUMTB.

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Authors and Affiliations

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

    Xinyu Shi, Shuang Bai & Wei Chen

Authors
  1. Xinyu Shi
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  2. Shuang Bai
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  3. Wei Chen
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Contributions

Xinyu Shi: methodology, writing, and formal analysis. Shuang Bai: coding and methodology. Wei Chen: editing, data curation, investigation, and validation.

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Correspondence to Wei Chen.

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Shi, X., Bai, S. & Chen, W. Remote sensing of water use efficiency in Southwest China’s karst area. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 71166–71178 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20907-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-022-20907-6

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