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Spatial and decadal variations in satellite-based terrestrial evapotranspiration and drought over Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China during 1982–2009

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Abstract

Evapotranspiration (ET) plays an important role in exchange of water budget and carbon cycles over the Inner Mongolia autonomous region of China (IMARC). However, the spatial and decadal variations in terrestrial ET and drought over the IMARC in the past was calculated by only using sparse meteorological point-based data which remain quite uncertain. In this study, by combining satellite and meteorology datasets, a satellite-based semi-empirical Penman ET (SEMI-PM) algorithm is used to estimate regional ET and evaporative wet index (EWI) calculated by the ratio of ET and potential ET (PET) over the IMARC. Validation result shows that the square of the correlation coefficients \((R^{2})\) for the four sites varies from 0.45 to 0.84 and the root-mean-square error (RMSE) is  \(0.78\) mm. We found that the ET has decreased on an average of 4.8 mm per decade (\(p=0.10\)) over the entire IMARC during 1982–2009 and the EWI has decreased on an average of 1.1% per decade (\(p=0.08\)) during the study period. Importantly, the patterns of monthly EWI anomalies have a good spatial and temporal correlation with the Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) anomalies from 1982 to 2009, indicating EWI can be used to monitor regional surface drought with high spatial resolution. In high-latitude ecosystems of northeast region of the IMARC, both air temperature \((T_{a})\) and incident solar radiation \((R_{s})\) are the most important parameters in determining ET. However, in semiarid and arid areas of the central and southwest regions of the IMARC, both relative humidity (RH) and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) are the most important factors controlling annual variation of ET.

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Acknowledgements

The authors would like to extend their thanks to China Meteorological Administration (CMA) for providing ground-measured meteorological data. The authors would also like to thank Dr Shaomin Liu from Beijing Normal University, Dr Guangsheng Zhou and Dr Qibing Wang from the Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, for providing ground-measured data. Other Eddy covariance measured data for two flux tower sites in this study was downloaded from Chinaflux network (http://159.226.111.42/pingtai/LoginRe/opendata.jsp) and the Coordinated Enhanced Observation Project (CEOP) in arid and semi-arid regions of northern China (http://observation.tea.ac.cn/). MODIS land cover satellite product was obtained online (http://reverb.echo.nasa.gov/reverb). MOD16 ET product was obtained online (ftp://ftp.ntsg.umt.edu/pub/MODIS/NTSG_Products/MOD16/MOD16A2.105_MERRAGMAO/). PDSI product was obtained online (http://www.cgd.ucar.edu/cas/catalog/climind/pdsi.html). This work was also partially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (No. 2016YFB0501404) and the Natural Science Fund of China (41671331).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Resources and Environmental Engineering, Shandong University of Technology, Zibo, 255000, Shandong, China

    Zhaolu Zhang

  2. China Mobile Group Beijing Co., Ltd., Beijing, 100027, China

    Hui Kang

  3. State Key Laboratory of Remote Sensing Science, Faculty of Geographical Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China

    Yunjun Yao & Kun Jia

  4. Earth Sciences Department, Faculty of Science, University of Kufa, Najaf, 34003, Iraq

    Ayad M Fadhil

  5. College of Resource Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Yuhu Zhang

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  1. Zhaolu Zhang
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Correspondence to Yunjun Yao.

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Corresponding editor: Suresh Babu

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Zhang, Z., Kang, H., Yao, Y. et al. Spatial and decadal variations in satellite-based terrestrial evapotranspiration and drought over Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China during 1982–2009. J Earth Syst Sci 126, 119 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-017-0885-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12040-017-0885-0

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