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Variability, tendencies, and climate controls of terrestrial evapotranspiration and gross primary productivity in the recent decade over China
Author(s) -
Mo Xingguo,
Liu Suxia,
Chen Xuejuan,
Hu Shi
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
ecohydrology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.982
H-Index - 54
eISSN - 1936-0592
pISSN - 1936-0584
DOI - 10.1002/eco.1951
Subject(s) - evapotranspiration , primary production , environmental science , precipitation , vegetation (pathology) , ecosystem , leaf area index , atmospheric sciences , water resources , enhanced vegetation index , ecosystem respiration , physical geography , hydrology (agriculture) , climatology , normalized difference vegetation index , ecology , geography , meteorology , vegetation index , geology , geotechnical engineering , biology , medicine , pathology
Abstract Accurately estimating regional water and vegetation carbon fixation and understanding their covariation mechanisms will benefit regional water resources and ecosystem management. The process‐based vegetation interface processes model was employed to simulate the spatiotemporal variations of evapotranspiration (ET) and vegetation gross primary production (GPP) over the land mass of China, by integrating the 8‐day Terra‐MODIS leaf area index dataset from 2000 to 2013. It is found that there are remarkable spatial variations in annual ET and GPP across the country, top values being around 1,200 mm for ET and 3,000 gC m −2 for GPP mostly occurred in the southern rainforests. Average annual ET and GPP are weakly increasing, in which about one third is significant. At annual scale, variability of ET follows precipitation variations, whereas variability of GPP follows variations of both precipitation and leaf area index. At monthly scale, variations of ET and GPP are more correlated with net radiation than precipitation. It is revealed that the climatic factors dominating water and carbon fluxes are different over the typical climate zones. The increasing GPP and water use efficiency are benefitting the regional vegetation recovery and carbon fixation, however, more water consumption may exaggerate the ecosystem vulnerability in water‐limited zones.