The Relationship between Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Climate Factors in the Semiarid Region: A Case Study in Yalu Tsangpo River Basin of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

The Yalu Tsangpo River basin is a typical semi-arid and cold region in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where significant climate change has been detected in the past decades. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the regional vegetation, especially the typical plant types, responds to the cli...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in山地科学学报:英文版 no. 4; pp. 926 - 940
Main Author GUO Bing ZHOU Yi WANG Shi-xin TAO He-ping
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published 2014
Subjects
Online AccessGet full text

Cover

Loading…
More Information
Summary:The Yalu Tsangpo River basin is a typical semi-arid and cold region in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where significant climate change has been detected in the past decades. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the regional vegetation, especially the typical plant types, responds to the climate changes. In this study, the model of gravity center has been firstly introduced to analyze the spatial-temporal relationship between NDVI and climate factors considering the time-lag effect. The results show that the vegetation grown has been positively influenced by the rainfall and precipitation both in moving tracks of gravity center and time-lag effect especially for the growing season during the past thirteen years. The herbs and shrubs are inclined to be influenced by the change of rainfall and temperature, which is indicated by larger positive correlation coefficients at the 0.05 confidence level and shorter lagging time. For the soil moisture, the significantly negative relationship of NDV-PDI indicates that the growth and productivity of the vegetation are closely related to the short-term soil water, with the correlation coefficients reaching the maximum value of o.81 at Lag 0-1. Among the typicalvegetation types of plateau, the shrubs of low mountain, steppe and meadow are more sensitive to the change of soil moisture with coefficients of -0.95, -0.93, -0.92, respectively. These findings reveal that the spatial and temporal heterogeneity between NDVI and climatic factors are of great ecological significance and practical value for the protection of eco-environment in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
Bibliography:Climate change; Gravity center;Correlation coefficients; Vegetation productivity;Time-lag effect
51-1668/P
The Yalu Tsangpo River basin is a typical semi-arid and cold region in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where significant climate change has been detected in the past decades. The objective of this paper is to demonstrate how the regional vegetation, especially the typical plant types, responds to the climate changes. In this study, the model of gravity center has been firstly introduced to analyze the spatial-temporal relationship between NDVI and climate factors considering the time-lag effect. The results show that the vegetation grown has been positively influenced by the rainfall and precipitation both in moving tracks of gravity center and time-lag effect especially for the growing season during the past thirteen years. The herbs and shrubs are inclined to be influenced by the change of rainfall and temperature, which is indicated by larger positive correlation coefficients at the 0.05 confidence level and shorter lagging time. For the soil moisture, the significantly negative relationship of NDV-PDI indicates that the growth and productivity of the vegetation are closely related to the short-term soil water, with the correlation coefficients reaching the maximum value of o.81 at Lag 0-1. Among the typicalvegetation types of plateau, the shrubs of low mountain, steppe and meadow are more sensitive to the change of soil moisture with coefficients of -0.95, -0.93, -0.92, respectively. These findings reveal that the spatial and temporal heterogeneity between NDVI and climatic factors are of great ecological significance and practical value for the protection of eco-environment in Qinghai-Tibet Plateau.
ISSN:1672-6316
1993-0321