Spatiotemporal Variations in Fractional Vegetation Cover and Their Responses to Climatic Changes on the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau

• Published in: Remote Sensing
• Main Authors: Haoshuang Han, Yunhe Yin, Yan Zhao, Feng Qin
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: MDPI AG 2023
• Subjects: fractional vegetation cover; alpine vegetation; spatiotemporal variations; climatic changes; partial correlation analyses; Qinghai–Tibet Plateau; Science; Q; Browning; Indian; permafrost
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.3390/rs15102662; https://doaj.org/article/85d2a6df00904d579acfc603fc69e67e

The alpine vegetation of the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau (QTP) is extremely vulnerable and sensitive to climatic fluctuations, making it an ideal area to study the potential impacts of climate on vegetation dynamics. Fractional vegetation cover (FVC) is regarded as one of the key indicators in monitoring semiarid and arid ecosystems due to its sensitive responses to vegetation behavior under climatic changes. Although many studies have analyzed the responses of vegetation on the QTP to climatic change, limited information is available on the influence of climatic variables on FVC changes in this area. In this study, we used satellite images and meteorological data to investigate the spatiotemporal variations of FVC during the growing season (FVC GS ) during 1998–2018 and evaluated the responses to changes in climatic variables. Results showed that FVC GS displayed an overall fluctuating rise of 0.01/10 a ( p < 0.01) over the study period. The FVC GS variation was spatially heterogeneous, with a general trend of greening in the northern and browning in the southern QTP. Obvious correlations were observed between the average FVC, average temperature, and total precipitation of the growing season, with precipitation being the primary controlling factor for vegetation growth. Some regions in the northwestern and northeastern QTP showed greening trends due to the positive influence of precipitation. Some areas in the southwestern QTP experienced browning trends due to water shortages caused, probably, by the weakening of the Indian monsoon. Browning in the southeastern parts was likely caused by drought and permafrost degradation resulting from high temperature. The inconsistent trend of vegetation change on the QTP is relatively high considering the continuous warming and changing atmospheric circulation patterns. FVC in most regions of the QTP has 0–1 month temporal responses to precipitation and temperature. Moreover, the one-month lagged effects of temperature and precipitation had a greater influence on steppe and ...