How Does Spring Phenology Respond to Climate Change in Ecologically Fragile Grassland? A Case Study from the Northeast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau

Xin Yang, Yuanyuan Hao, Wenxia Cao, Xiaojun Yu, Limin Hua, Xin Liu, Tao Yu and Caijin Chen
Additional contact information
Xin Yang: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China
Yuanyuan Hao: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China
Wenxia Cao: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China
Xiaojun Yu: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China
Limin Hua: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China
Xin Liu: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China
Tao Yu: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China
Caijin Chen: College of Grassland Science, Gansu Agricultural University, Key Laboratory of Grassland Ecosystem of the Ministry of Education, Engineering and Technology Research Centre for Alpine Rodent Pest Control of National Forestry and Grassland Administration, Lanzhou 730070, China

Sustainability, 2021, vol. 13, issue 22, 1-20

Abstract: Vegetation phenology is an important indicator of global climate change, and the response of grassland phenology to climate change is particularly sensitive in ecologically fragile areas. To enhance the ecological security of the Tibetan Plateau, it is crucial to determine the relationship between fluctuations in the start of the growing season (SOS) and the response to environmental factors. We investigated the trends of the intra-annual (ten-day) and interannual spatiotemporal dynamics of the SOS on the Northeast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (NQTP) from 2000–2020 with MOD09GA data. We identified the response relationships with environmental factors (climate, terrain) using the maximum value composite method and the Savitzky–Golay filtering and dynamic threshold method. The SOS was concentrated from the 110th to 150th days; the average annual SOS was on the 128th day, with a spatial pattern of “early in the east and late in the west”. The overall trend of the SOS was advanced (45.48%); the regions with the advanced trend were mainly distributed in the eastern part of the NQTP. The regions with a delayed SOS were mainly concentrated in the higher-altitude regions in the southwest (38.31%). The temperature, precipitation and SOS exhibited a reverse fluctuation trend around the midpoint of 2010. Precipitation affected the SOS earlier than temperature. When temperature became a limitation of the SOS, precipitation had a more significant regulatory effect on the SOS. The SOS and aspect, slope and altitude were distributed in axisymmetric, pyramidal and inverted pyramidal shapes, respectively. The SOS on shaded slopes was earlier and more intensive than that on sunny slopes. With increasing slope, the area of the SOS decreased, and it occurred later. The SOS area was largest at 4500–5000 m and decreased at lower and higher altitude intervals. The SOS occurred later as altitude increased.

Keywords: climate change; arid and semiarid regions; spring phenology; terrain factor; MODIS ten-day data; northeast Qinghai-Tibet Plateau (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12781/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/22/12781/ (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:13:y:2021:i:22:p:12781-:d:682685

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 ().