The Responses of the Ecosystems in the Tianshan North Slope under Multiple Representative Concentration Pathway Scenarios in the Middle of the 21st Century

Peng Cai, Chaofan Li, Geping Luo, Chi Zhang, Friday Uchenna Ochege, Steven Caluwaerts, Lesley De Cruz, Rozemien De Troch, Sara Top, Piet Termonia and Philippe De Maeyer
Additional contact information
Peng Cai: State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Chaofan Li: Collaborative Innovation Center on Forecast and Evaluation of Meteorological Disaster, School of Geographic Sciences, Nanjing University of Information Science and Technology, Nanjing 210044, China
Geping Luo: State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Chi Zhang: Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Water and Soil Conservation and Environmental Protection, College of Resources and Environment, Linyi University, Linyi 276000, China
Friday Uchenna Ochege: State Key Laboratory of Desert and Oasis Ecology, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi 830011, China
Steven Caluwaerts: Royal Meteorological Institute, 1180 Brussels, Belgium
Lesley De Cruz: Royal Meteorological Institute, 1180 Brussels, Belgium
Rozemien De Troch: Royal Meteorological Institute, 1180 Brussels, Belgium
Sara Top: Department of Geography, Ghent University, 9000 Gent, Belgium
Piet Termonia: Royal Meteorological Institute, 1180 Brussels, Belgium
Philippe De Maeyer: Department of Geography, Ghent University, 9000 Gent, Belgium

Sustainability, 2020, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-19

Abstract: The arid ecosystem is fragile and sensitive to the changes in climate and CO 2 concentration. Exploring the responses of the arid ecosystem to the changes under different representative concentration pathways (RCPs) is of particular significance for the sustainable development of the ecosystem. In this study, the dynamics of net primary productivity (NPP), evapotranspiration (ET), and water use efficiency (WUE) for arid ecosystems in Tianshan North Slope are explored by running the arid ecosystem model at 25 km resolution under RCP2.6, RCP4.5, and RCP8.5. The climate in Tianshan North Slope presents a wet-warming trend during 2006–2055 under each RCP scenario with temporal and spatial heterogeneity. In response to the changes in climate and CO 2 , the regional annual NPP and ET increased during 2006–2055 by a respectively maximum rate of 2.15 g C m −2 year −1 and 0.52 mm year −1 under RCP8.5. Both the NPP and ET share a similar temporal and spatial heterogeneity with climate change. Different vegetation types respond differently to the changes under different RCP scenarios with increasing WUE. Under each RCP, the non-phreatophyte, phreatophyte, and grass are more sensitive to the changes than in the others, and the broadleaf forest and cropland are less sensitive to the changes.

Keywords: arid ecosystem; arid ecosystem model (AEM); representative concentration pathway (RCP); future climate change; net primary productivity; evapotranspiration; Tianshan North Slope (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/427/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/1/427/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:12:y:2020:i:1:p:427-:d:305613

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().