Climate change enhances greening while human activities accelerate degradation in northern China's grasslands

被引：0

作者：

Cao, Feifei ^{[1
]}

Liu, Leizhen ^{[1
]}

Rong, Yuping ^{[1
]}

Jiang, Nan ^{[2
]}

Zhao, Lin ^{[3
]}

Zhang, Qian ^{[4
]}

Wu, Zhitao ^{[5
]}

Zhao, Wenhui ^{[1
]}

Li, Sheng ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] College of Grassland Science and Technology, China Agricultural University, Beijing

[2] State Key Laboratory of Tibetan Plateau Earth System, Environment and Resources (TPESER), Institute of Tibetan Plateau Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing

[3] School of Resource and Environmental Sciences, Wuhan University, Wuhan

[4] School of Geomatics Science and Technology, Nanjing Tech University, Nanjing

[5] Institute of Loess Plateau, Shanxi University, Taiyuan

来源：

Science of the Total Environment | 2025年 / 966卷

基金：

中国国家自然科学基金;

关键词：

Climate change; Grassland dynamics; Grassland types; Greening and degradation; Human activities; Partial derivative analysis;

D O I：

10.1016/j.scitotenv.2025.178570

中图分类号：

学科分类号：

摘要：

Northern China's grasslands play a pivotal role in livestock production, energy utilization, and ecosystem balance, both domestically and globally. However, they exhibit pronounced temporal variability and marked spatial heterogeneity. Since most existing studies rely on single vegetation indices and regional-scale analyses, they may introduce biases in interpreting grassland dynamics and their underlying drivers. To address this gap, we integrated both functional and structural indices — Gross Primary Productivity (GPP), solar-Induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), and Leaf Area Index (LAI) — to systematically investigate spatiotemporal trends across various grassland types in northern China. Using partial derivative analysis, we quantified the relative contributions of climate change and human activities to these observed vegetation trends. Results indicated that over 70 % of grassland areas, especially temperate grasslands, showed an overall increase in vegetation indices, while a decline was observed in the southwestern alpine grasslands. Climate change was the primary driver of grassland greening (56.55 %–63.83 %), primarily through increased precipitation in temperate grasslands and rising temperatures in alpine grasslands. Human activities contributed substantially to greening (36.17 %–43.45 %), especially in desertified temperate grasslands (e.g., Mu Us Sandy Land, Gansu, Ningxia, Xinjiang) and Qinghai alpine meadows, mainly through farmland restoration and desertification control. Conversely, human activities also served as the primary driver of grassland degradation (51.70 %–69.64 %) in certain alpine regions, where overgrazing and population growth — compounded by rising temperatures and declining soil moisture — led to significant vegetation losses. Moreover, 72.66 % of temperate grasslands demonstrated strong coupling between vegetation structure and function, whereas 57.59 % of alpine grasslands exhibited increasing GPP alongside declines in both LAI and SIF. Overall, these findings underscore the spatial heterogeneity of grassland responses to climatic and anthropogenic drivers, highlighting the necessity of employing multiple vegetation indices to guide targeted and effective grassland management strategies. © 2025

引用

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