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Feedbacks between vegetation restoration and local precipitation over the Loess Plateau in China

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Abstract

The implementation of large-scale vegetation restoration over the Chinese Loess Plateau has achieved clear improvements in vegetation fraction, as evidenced by large areas of slopes and plains being restored to grassland or forest. However, such large-scale vegetation restoration has altered land-atmosphere exchanges of water and energy, as the land surface characteristics have changed. These variations could affect regional climate, especially local precipitation. Quantitatively evaluating this feedback is an important scientific question in hydrometeorology. This study constructs a coupled land-atmosphere model incorporating vegetation dynamics, and analyzes the spatio-temporal changes of different land use types and land surface parameters over the Loess Plateau. By considering the impacts of vegetation restoration on the water-energy cycle and on land-atmosphere interactions, we quantified the feedback effect of vegetation restoration on local precipitation across the Loess Plateau, and discussed the important underlying processes. To achieve a quantitative evaluation, we designed two simulation experiments, comprising a real scenario with vegetation restoration and a hypothetical scenario without vegetation restoration. These enabled a comparison and analysis of the net impact of vegetation restoration on local precipitation. The results show that vegetation restoration had a positive effect on local precipitation over the Loess Plateau. Observations show that precipitation on the Loess Plateau increased significantly, at a rate of 7.84 mm yr−2, from 2000 to 2015. The simulations show that the contribution of large-scale vegetation restoration to the precipitation increase was about 37.4%, while external atmospheric circulation changes beyond the Loess Plateau contributed the other 62.6%. The average annual precipitation under the vegetation restoration scenario over the Loess Plateau was 12.4% higher than that under the scenario without vegetation restoration. The above research results have important theoretical and practical significance for the ecological protection and optimal development of the Loess Plateau, as well as the sustainable management of vegetation restoration.

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (Grant No. 2020YFA0608403) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 42022001, 41877150, 42041004 & 42001029).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Western China’s Environmental Systems (Ministry of Education), College of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Baoqing Zhang & Lei Tian

  2. Institute of Green Development for the Yellow River Drainage Basin, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou, 730000, China

    Lei Tian

  3. Institute of Soil and Water Conservation, Northwest A&F University, Yangling, 712100, China

    Xining Zhao & Pute Wu

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  1. Baoqing Zhang
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  2. Lei Tian
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Correspondence to Xining Zhao.

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Zhang, B., Tian, L., Zhao, X. et al. Feedbacks between vegetation restoration and local precipitation over the Loess Plateau in China. Sci. China Earth Sci. 64, 920–931 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9751-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11430-020-9751-8

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