Abstract
Human transformation of landscapes is pervasive and accelerating across the Earth. However, existing studies have not provided a comprehensive picture of how precipitation frequency and intensity respond to vegetation cover change. Therefore, this study took the Loess Plateau as a typical example, and used satellite-based Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) data and daily gridded climatic variables to assess the responses of precipitation dynamics to human-induced vegetation cover change. Results showed that the total precipitation amount exhibited little change at the regional scale, showing an upward but statistically insignificant (p > 0.05) trend of 7.6 mm/decade in the period 1982–2015. However, the frequency of precipitation with different intensities showed large variations over most of the Loess Plateau. The number of rainy days (light, moderate, heavy, very heavy and severe precipitation) increased in response to increased vegetation cover, especially in the central-eastern Loess Plateau. Anthropogenic land cover change is largely responsible for precipitation intensity changes. Additionally, this study also observed high spatially explicit heterogeneity in different precipitation intensities in response to vegetation cover change across the Loess Plateau. These findings provide some reference information for our understanding of precipitation frequency and intensity changes in response to regional vegetation cover change in the Loess Plateau.
Highlights
Human transformation of landscapes is pervasive and is accelerating across the Earth [1,2,3,4]
Previous studies have focused more on the responses of vegetation cover change to precipitation dynamics and the impacts of climate change on precipitation [16,20,64]. Distinct from these studies, our study investigates the relationships between different precipitation intensity changes and vegetation cover change, and highlights the analysis of the impact of vegetation cover change on precipitation dynamics
The present study showed that precipitation frequency is increasing in most of the Loess Plateau
Summary
Human transformation of landscapes is pervasive and is accelerating across the Earth [1,2,3,4]. In 2000, the term ‘Anthropocene’ was introduced just to denote the present epoch, in which many conditions and processes of the Earth have been altered by human activities, as well as to guide scientists and engineers toward environmentally sustainable management [4,5]. In this context, it is important to better understand and quantify the anthropogenic contributions to climatic and environmental changes. Whether human activities have potential relationships with these phenomena is still unknown
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