Projected Changes of Grassland Productivity along the Representative Concentration Pathways during 2010–2050 in China

Abstract

The grassland is an important land use type that plays an important role in the ecosystem services supply in China. It is of great significance to the grassland management to determine the changing trend of grassland productivity and its response to climate change. Firstly, the relationship between grassland productivity and climate change, geographical conditions, and human activities was analyzed with the panel data of the whole China during 1980–2010 in this study. The result indicated that the temperature and precipitation were very important to grassland productivity at the national scale. Secondly, the grassland in China was divided into 7 grassland ecological-economic zones according to the ecosystem service function and climate characteristics. The relationship between grassland productivity and climate change was further analyzed at the regional scale. The result indicated that the temperature is more beneficial to the increase of the grassland productivity in the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and the Southwest Karst shrubland region. Thirdly, the increase of the temperature and precipitation can increase the grassland productivity and consequently relieve the pressure according to the climate factors of simulation with the community climate system model v4.0 (CCSM). However, the simulation result indicates that the human pressure on grasslands is still severe under the four RCPs scenarios and the grassland area would reduce sharply due to the conversion from the grassland to the cultivated land. What is more, there is still a great challenge to the increase of total grassland productivity in China.