Abstract
A changing climate has been posing significant impacts on vegetation growth, especially in the Yellow River Basin (YRB) where agriculture and ecosystems are extremely vulnerable. In this study, the data for normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) obtained from moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) sensors and climate data (precipitation and temperature) derived from the national meteorological stations were employed to examine the spatiotemporal differences in vegetation growth and its reaction to climate changes in the YRB from 2000–2019, using several sophisticated statistical methods. The results showed that both NDVI and climatic variables exhibited overall increasing trends during this period, and positive correlations at different significant levels were found between temperature/precipitation and NDVI. Furthermore, NDVI in spring had the strongest response to temperature/precipitation, and the correlation coefficient of NDVI with temperature and precipitation was 0.485 and 0.726, respectively. However, an opposite situation was detected in autumn (September to November) since NDVIs exhibited the weakest responses to temperatures/precipitation, and the NDVI’s correlation with both temperature and precipitation was 0.13. This indicated that, compared to other seasons, increasing the temperature and precipitation has the most significant effect on NDVI in spring (March to May). Except for a few places in the northern, southern, and southwestern regions of the YRB, NDVI was positively correlated with precipitation in most areas. There was an inverse relationship between NDVI and temperature in most parts of the central YRB, especially in summer (June to August) and growing season (May to September); however, there was a positive correlation in most areas of the YRB in spring. Finally, continuous attention must be given to the influence of other factors in the YRB.
Highlights
Vegetation growth has been deemed important for water balance, carbon cycling, and energy flow [1,2]
Using a t-test, we evaluated the level of significance of the correlation coefficient t between normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and precipitation/temperature
There was a linear correlation between the interpolation results and the observed data from meteorological stations
Summary
Vegetation growth has been deemed important for water balance, carbon cycling, and energy flow [1,2]. The normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), strongly correlated with vegetation dynamics [3,4], has been frequently used as an indicator of variation in vegetation structure [5,6,7,8,9]. Vegetation changes are constantly affected by climatic variables [10]. Climate change predominantly affects vegetation by variations 4.0/). 2022, 14, 687 in precipitation and temperature, which can further influence the processes of photosynthesis, respiration, and the decomposition of soil organic carbon [11,12,13]. The two most significant climatic parameters that affect vegetation are precipitation and temperature [14]
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