VEGETATION CHANGES AND THE RELATIONSHIP WITH CLIMATE VARIABILITY IN THE UPPER AND MIDDLE REACHES OF THE NENJIANG RIVER BASIN, CHINA

Abstract. To detect changes in vegetation is desirable for modeling and predicting interactions between land surface and atmosphere. Multitemporal series of SPOT VEGETATION NDVI dataset and meteorological data were integrated to interpret vegetation dynamics and the linkage with climate variations in the upper and middle reaches of the Nenjiang River Basin (NRB) from 1999 to 2010 using the correlation analysis and the rescaled range (R/S) analysis. The results demonstrate that annual NDVI increased slightly and 26.02% vegetation coverage of the study area significantly improved. The area of significantly decreased in vegetation cover took up 13.33% of the total land in spring. In autumn, 26.2% of the study area showed a significant vegetation increase. The improved activity of vegetation might reinforce in summer and autumn, while the decreasing tendency in spring might be persistent in the future. The yearly NDVI had significant positive linkages with precipitation and relative humidity. NDVI related significantly and negatively with temperature, sunshine hours and wind velocity, because they may have effects of increasing evapotranspiration and risk of drought and cold damage of vegetation. The variations of annual NDVI were much affected by summer temperature, relative humidity and sunshine duration in autumn and spring wind velocity. Seasonal NDVI decreased in parallel with elevated temperature, but there was no correlation between NDVI and precipitation. Spring temperature, relative humidity in summer and autumn contributed markedly to NDVI variations in the same season. The vegetation improving trend may induce by the warm-wetting climate in recent twelve years.