Change in drought conditions and its impacts on vegetation growth over the Tibetan Plateau

Understanding climate change as well as its impacts on vegetation growth over the Tibetan Plateau has important implication for ecosystems. This study investigated changes in drought conditions and their impacts on vegetation growth over the Tibetan Plateau. The results reveal that the precipitation in growing season (May-September) shows a significant increase over most parts of the central and eastern Tibetan Plateau during 1961-2019. Consequently, drought conditions have generally relieved except in the south and northeast where precipitation has decreased. Combining analyses of gridded-dataset-derived drought indices with vegetation indices during 1982-2015, vegetation improvement in most regions of the Plateau is mainly due to lessened drought conditions. Noticeably, vegetation degradation is also found in part of southern Tibetan Plateau mainly resulting from drought enhancement. This study is expected to provide scientific basis for understanding of change in drought condition and its impacts on vegetation over different regions of TP under global warming background.

Automated summary

This study found that precipitation has increased in most parts of the Tibetan Plateau, resulting in relief of drought conditions and improvement of vegetation primarily due to lessened drought. However, vegetation degradation was observed in some parts of the southern Tibetan Plateau, mainly due to exacerbated drought conditions.