Spatiotemporal changes in vegetation coverage and its causes in China since the Chinese economic reform

With the rapid development of the economy over 40 years since the initiation of Chinese economic reform, terrestrial ecosystems in China have undergone large-scale changes. In this study, we investigated vegetation dynamics in China and their relationships with climatic factors and anthropogenic drivers over 15 progressive periods of 18–32 years starting in 1982. This was accomplished by using the third-generation global satellite Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer (AVHRR), Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) dataset, night-time satellite data, and climate data. Across China, NDVI increased significantly during 1982–2013; especially significant increases were observed in all periods during the growing season and spring. At the pixel scale, 21–38% of the vegetated area in the 15 periods experienced a significant positive trend in vegetation growth. This increase was mostly located in central and southern China. A significant negative trend was observed in 1–8% of the vegetated area pixels, and this pattern was mainly seen in northwestern China, the Yangtze River Delta region, and the Pearl River Delta region. The contribution of spring NDVI to vegetation improvement increased, while the contribution of summer NDVI decreased. Vegetation activity in China was mainly regulated by thermal factors, especially pronounced in mountainous regions of northern China. However, the restrictive effect of moisture factors was very marked to vegetation growth in areas with less than 400 mm of precipitation. Urbanization in China has led to vegetation degradation in most urban centers and surrounding areas in central and eastern China. The increase of agricultural plantations, the Grain for Green Project, and a series ecological restoration projects in some areas have promoted vegetation coverage.