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An integrated assessment of the impact of precipitation and groundwater on vegetation growth in arid and semiarid areas

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Abstract

Increased demand for water resources together with the influence of climate change has degraded water conditions which support vegetation in many parts of the world, especially in arid and semiarid areas. This study develops an integrated framework to assess the impact of precipitation and groundwater on vegetation growth in the Xiliao River Plain of northern China. The integrated framework systematically combines remote sensing technology with water flow modeling in the vadose zone and field data analysis. The vegetation growth is quantitatively evaluated with the remote sensing data by the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and the simulated plant water uptake rates. The correlations among precipitation, groundwater depth and NDVI are investigated using Pearson correlation equations. The results provide insights for understanding interactions between precipitation and groundwater and their contributions to vegetation growth. Strong correlations between groundwater depth, plant water uptake and NDVI are found in parts of the study area during a ten-year drought period. The numerical modeling results indicate that there is an increased correlation between the groundwater depth and vegetation growth and that groundwater significantly contributes to sustaining effective soil moisture for vegetation growth during the long drought period. Therefore, a decreasing groundwater table might pose a great threat to the survival of vegetation during a long drought period.

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Acknowledgments

This work was supported by National Natural Science (Nos. 41201420, 41130744), Beijing Nova Program (No. Z111106054511097) and Beijing Young Talent Plan. The authors are thankful to Xinyin Cui of the Songliao Water Resource Committee for providing the field data.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Laboratory Cultivation Base of Environment Process and Digital Simulation, College of Resources Environment and Tourism, Capital Normal University, Beijing, 100048, China

    Lin Zhu & Huili Gong

  2. Earth and Environmental Sciences Division, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, NM, 87545, USA

    Lin Zhu & Zhenxue Dai

  3. Fenner School of Environment and Society, Australian National University, Canberra, ACT, 0200, Australia

    Tingbao Xu

  4. College of Environment and Resources, Jilin University, Changchun, 130021, China

    Xiaosi Su

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  1. Lin Zhu
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  2. Huili Gong
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  3. Zhenxue Dai
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Correspondence to Xiaosi Su.

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Zhu, L., Gong, H., Dai, Z. et al. An integrated assessment of the impact of precipitation and groundwater on vegetation growth in arid and semiarid areas. Environ Earth Sci 74, 5009–5021 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12665-015-4513-5

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