Dynamic Changes of NDVI in the Growing Season of the Tibetan Plateau During the Past 17 Years and Its Response to Climate Change

Xianglin Huang, Tingbin Zhang, Guihua Yi, Dong He, Xiaobing Zhou, Jingji Li, Xiaojuan Bie and Jiaqing Miao
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Xianglin Huang: College of Earth Science, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Tingbin Zhang: College of Earth Science, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Guihua Yi: College of Management Science, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Dong He: International Institute for Earth System Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
Xiaobing Zhou: Geophysical Engineering Department, Montana Tech of the University of Montana, Butte, MT 59701, USA
Jingji Li: Chengdu University of Technology, College of Environmental and Civil Engineering Institute, Chengdu 610059, China
Xiaojuan Bie: College of Tourism and Urban-Rural Planning, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
Jiaqing Miao: The Engineering & Technical College of Chengdu University of Technology, Leshan 614000, China

IJERPH, 2019, vol. 16, issue 18, 1-21

Abstract: The fragile alpine vegetation in the Tibetan Plateau (TP) is very sensitive to environmental changes, making TP one of the hotspots for studying the response of vegetation to climate change. Existing studies lack detailed description of the response of vegetation to different climatic factors using the method of multiple nested time series analysis and the method of grey correlation analysis. In this paper, based on the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) of TP in the growing season calculated from the MOD09A1 data product of Moderate-resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), the method of multiple nested time series analysis is adopted to study the variation trends of NDVI in recent 17 years, and the lag time of NDVI to climate change is analyzed using the method of Grey Relational Analysis (GRA). Finally, the characteristics of temporal and spatial differences of NDVI to different climate factors are summarized. The results indicate that: (1) the spatial distribution of NDVI values in the growing season shows a trend of decreasing from east to west, and from north to south, with a change rate of −0.13/10° E and −0.30/10° N, respectively. (2) From 2001 to 2017, the NDVI in the TP shows a slight trend of increase, with a growth rate of 0.01/10a. (3) The lag time of NDVI to air temperature is not obvious, while the NDVI response lags behind cumulative precipitation by zero to one month, relative humidity by two months, and sunshine duration by three months. (4) The effects of different climatic factors on NDVI are significantly different with the increase of the study period.

Keywords: NDVI; climate change; Multiple Nested Times Series Analysis (MNTSA); Grey Relational Analysis (GRA); Tibetan Plateau (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

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