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Journal of Arid Land
Journal of Arid Land  2018, Vol. 10 Issue (6): 850-863    DOI: 10.1007/s40333-018-0075-1
Research article     
Seasonal differences in climatic controls of vegetation growth in the Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Region of China
Lishan SHAN1,*(), Xiang YU2, Lingxiao SUN3, Bin HE4, Haiyan WANG4, Tingting XIE1
1 College of Forestry, Gansu Agricultural University, Lanzhou 730070, China
2 Chinese Academy of Forestry, Beijing 100091, China
3 University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
4 College of Global Change and Earth System Science, Beijing Normal University, Beijing 100875, China
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Abstract  

Launched in 2002, the Beiing-Tianjin Sand Source Control Project (BTSSCP) is an ecological restoration project intended to prevent desertification in China. Evidence from multiple sources has confirmed increases in vegetation growth in the BTSSCP region since the initiation of this project. Precipitation and essential climate variable-soil moisture (ECV-SM) conditions are typically considered to be the main drivers of vegetation growth in this region. Although many studies have investigated the inter-annual variations of vegetation growth, few concerns have been focused on the annual and seasonal variations of vegetation growth and their climatic drivers, which are crucial for understanding the relationships among the climate, vegetation, and human activities at the regional scale. Based on the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) derived from MODIS and the corresponding climatic data, we explored the responses of vegetation growth to climatic factors at annual and seasonal scales in the BTSSCP region during the period 2000-2014. Over the study region as a whole, NDVI generally increased from 2000 to 2014, at a rate of 0.002/a. Vegetation growth is stimulated mainly by the elevated temperature in spring, whereas precipitation is the leading driver of summer greening. In autumn, positive effects of both temperature and precipitation on vegetation growth were observed. The warming in spring promotes vegetation growth but reduces ECV-SM. Summer greening has a strong cooling effect on land surface temperature. These results indicate that the ecological and environmental consequences of ecological restoration projects should be comprehensively evaluated.

Key words： vegetation growth      climatic drivers      seasonal variation      ecological engineering      interaction      Beiing-Tianjin Sand Source Controlling Project (BTSSCP)      NDVI     
Received: 20 May 2018      Published: 07 November 2018
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Lishan SHAN
Xiang YU
Lingxiao SUN
Bin HE
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Tingting XIE
Cite this article:

Lishan SHAN, Xiang YU, Lingxiao SUN, Bin HE, Haiyan WANG, Tingting XIE. Seasonal differences in climatic controls of vegetation growth in the Beijing-Tianjin Sand Source Region of China. Journal of Arid Land, 2018, 10(6): 850-863.

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http://jal.xjegi.com/10.1007/s40333-018-0075-1     OR     http://jal.xjegi.com/Y2018/V10/I6/850

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