Spatial-Temporal variations of vegetation and the relationship with precipitation in summer-A case study in the hilly area of central Sichuan province

Key Laboratory of Geoscience Spatial Information Technology of Ministry of Land and Resources, 610059 Chengdu, China

Abstract

The hilly area of central Sichuan is one of the ecologically fragile regions in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, and it is also the main part of ecological engineering construction. The ecological environment in the study area is related to the ecological security in the middle and lower reaches of the Yangtze River. Recent years have witnessed a great change in vegetation cover in this area as a result of climate change. Therefore, it is necessary to identify the changing patterns of vegetation cover and the impacts of climate change on the vegetation cover change in the study area. In this paper, the characteristics of vegetation cover change over the past 15 years were analyzed, based on the dataset of MODIS NDVI from 2001 to 2015 as well as the climate data from 55 meteorological stations, with methods such as maximum value composite (MVC), linear regression and correlation coefficient. The results showed that the annual maximum average NDVI in the hilly areas of central Sichuan has increased at a rate of 5.84/10a (P<0.01), while the summer average NDVI has increased at a rate of 1.6/10a (P>0.1). The spatial distribution of annual NDVI significantly increased (31.58%) was greater than the significantly decreasing trend (2.90%). Besides, areas with significantly positive correlation and significantly negative correlation between NDVI and precipitation in summer accounted for 16.91% and 2.5% of the total area, respectively. And, the correlation between NDVI and precipitation in summer was different in different regions.