The Warming Effect of Urbanization in the Urban Agglomeration Area Accelerates Vegetation Growth on the Urban-Rural Gradient

Urbanization has changed the environmental conditions of vegetation growth, such as the heat island effect, which has an indirect impact on vegetation growth. However, the extent to which the direct and indirect effects of the thermal environment changes caused by urbanization on vegetation growth are unclear. In this study, taking the example of the Guangdong-Hong KongMacao Greater Bay Area, a fast-growing national urban agglomeration in China, the relationship between vegetation growth and warming conditions during the period from 2001 to 2020 were explored by the net primary productivity (NPP) and land surface temperature (LST), based on the vegetation growth theory, in urban environments. The results show that there is a significant exponential relationship between the warming and the growth of large-scale vegetation. This relationship is mainly attributable to thermal environmental factors, since their multi-year average contribution rate on the interannual scale is 95.02%. The contribution rate varies on the seasonal scale, according to which the contribution rate is the largest in autumn and the smallest in winter. This research is of great significance for predicting the potential response of vegetation growth to future climate warming and improving vegetation growth in urban areas.

Automated summary

Urbanization has both direct and indirect effects on vegetation growth. This study focused on the impact of thermal environmental changes caused by urbanization on vegetation growth and found a significant exponential relationship between warming and the growth of large-scale vegetation. Thermal environmental factors were identified as the main contributors to this relationship.