Assessment of vegetation change on the Mongolian Plateau over three decades using different remote sensing products

Abstract

As a major component of temperate steppes in the Eurasian continent, the Mongolian Plateau (MP) plays a pivotal role in the East Asian and global carbon cycles. This paper describes the use of five remote sensing indices derived from satellite data to characterize vegetation cover on MP, namely: gross primary production (GPP), net primary production (NPP), normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), leaf area index (LAI) and fractional vegetation cover (FVC). It is found that GPP, NPP, and NDVI exhibit increasing trends, whereas LAI and FVC present decreasing trends on the MP since 1982. The different indices highlight discrepancies in the spatial pattern of vegetation growth, with the greatest increase in the southeast of MP. Only 3.4% of the total land area of MP exhibited consistent trends in the indices (0.1% degradation and 3.3% growth, P < 0.01), with the synchronous change of both LAI and NPP exhibiting higher consistency than that of raw NDVI and NPP. Understanding of the characteristics and status of vegetation change on the MP has far-reaching implications for its ecological protection management, and climate change mitigation.