Asynchronous changes in precipitation and soil water content decelerate vegetation greening on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau

作者：Lingyan Qi, Haijun Zeng, Peipei Liu, A. Allan Degen, Wenyin Wang, Mei Huang, Binyu Luo, Tianyun Qi, Zhen Peng, Jingxue Zhao, Zhanhuan Shang · 发表于：Journal of Environmental Management · 年份：2025 · DOI：10.1016/j.jenvman.2025.126847 · 被引用次数：7 · 研究领域：Remote Sensing and Land Use、Remote Sensing in Agriculture、Environmental Changes in China

Climate warming and precipitation generally enhance greening on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau (QTP). However, recent studies suggested that the greening trend is decelerating, while its underlying driving mechanisms remain unclear. We speculate that this may be related to an asynchrony between precipitation and soil water content in certain regions, but this is poorly understood. To fill this gap, we studied vegetation greening on the QTP using time series satellite-derived AVHRR NDVI (normalized difference vegetation index) data of climate and soil water content for the past 39 years. NDVI increased over the whole period; however, it displayed a downward trend after the year 2000 compared with the previous 19 years. Asynchronous changes in precipitation and soil water content decelerated vegetation greening. Non-woody species responded stronger to asynchrony than woody species, with meadows being most affected and forests the least. We concluded that with global warming, soil water content may decrease in areas on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, and that vegetation greening may decelerate in the future.