Modeling the impact of urbanization and climate changes on terrestrial vegetation productivity in China by a neighborhood substitution analysis

Zilong Qin and Zongyao Sha

Ecological Modelling, 2023, vol. 482, issue C

Abstract: Vegetation plays a vital role in global carbon sink in terrestrial ecosystems and could be affected by climate changes and human activities. In the current context of rapid urban expansion, understanding the impacts of urbanization and climate changes on net primary productivity (NPP) is helpful to sequester more atmospheric carbon and achieve carbon neutrality. We explored the terrestrial spatio-temporal NPP dynamics in China during the years 2000–2010 and 2010–2020, respectively, using the Carnegie-Ames-Stanford Approach (CASA) model based on multi-source remote sensing data. We then proposed a neighborhood substitution model to isolate the effects of urbanization and climate changes on NPP and examined the driving forces for the NPP update. The results revealed that while urbanization was likely to reduce NPP, averagely by 48.57 Tg C and 50.13 Tg C in the two stages, climate changes improved NPP by 97.71 Tg C and 92.46 Tg C, respectively, indicating that the climate changes offset the reduced vegetation productivity from rapid urbanization. The results highlighted that the rapidly urbanizing process reduced vegetation productivity due to the lost vegetated land and degraded vegetation productivity. In addition, the residual effect other than urbanization and the climate changes also played a part on the degraded vegetation carbon sequestration, reducing NPP by an average of 4.29 Tg C year−1 and 3.94 Tg C year−1 in the two stages, which could be related to other human activities. We recommend protecting vegetation cover and making informed land use plan as means to improve carbon sequestration in the context of rapid urban expansion and climate changes.

Keywords: Net primary productivity; Neighborhood substitution; Urbanization; Climate changes; Quantitative assessment (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecomod:v:482:y:2023:i:c:s0304380023001369

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolmodel.2023.110405

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