Increased Vegetation Greenness Aggravates Water Conflicts during Lasting and Intensifying Drought in the Poyang Lake Watershed, China

An increase in vegetation greenness can improve ecosystem productivity, but also reduce the water supply, creating the potential for conflicting water demands between ecosystems and humans. This problem has been well-assessed and is most evident in dry environments. However, in humid regions, the potential effects of vegetation greenness on water yields under drought conditions are not well understood. To address this gap, we focused on the Poyang Lake watershed in the humid region of southern China. Based on the Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index and a satellite-derived leaf area index dataset during the growing seasons of 1984 to 2013, several typical dry growing seasons were selected as the study conditions. An existing Water Supply Stress Index model was modified to investigate how the changes in vegetation greenness affected water yield and to explore potentially conflicting water demands between ecosystems and humans under drought conditions. Our results showed that an increase of 20-80% in vegetation greenness generally resulted in a reduction of 3-27% in water yield under drought conditions. Large reductions in water yield mainly were observed in forested areas due to large increases in forest greenness. Moreover, increased vegetation greenness caused a 2 to 3 times greater reduction in water yield during continuing and intensifying droughts than during a short moderate drought period. Thus, in this study, during continuing and intensifying droughts, increased vegetation greenness can cause or aggravate water conflicts in sub-watersheds with high forest cover and high human water demands. Therefore, given the increasing frequency of extreme climatic events, afforestation with a targeted approach should be implemented as it would provide the most benefits. In addition, selective harvesting in forested areas with high density could be an effective strategy to maintain water supply in humid regions.