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| Increased Browning of Woody Vegetation Due to Continuous Seasonal Droughts in Yunnan Province, China |
| CHEN Hong-Ping1,2, JIA Gen-Suo1, FENG Jin-Ming1, DONG Yan-Sheng3 |
1Key Laboratory of Regional Climate-Environment for East Asia, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100029, China
2University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China
3Beijing Research Center for Information Technology in Agriculture, Beijing 100097, China |
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Abstract In this paper, based on the analysis of satellite measurements, the authors conclude that the continuous seasonal droughts intensify the browning of woody vegetation and that evergreen needleleaf forest (ENF) shows a larger browning percentage than other woody vegetation types over Yunnan Province. Based on the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) precipitation standardized anomaly, in the dry season, which is from October to March, the 2010 drought affected an area of Yunnan Province 1.77 times larger than the 2012 drought, but in the post-drought months (April to June), the browning area of all woody vegetation in 2012 was 1.11 times larger than that in 2010 on the basis of the enhanced vegetation index (EVI) standardized anomaly. The reduction of vegetation greenness over large areas of Yunnan Province represents a photosynthetic capacity loss which will have an impact on carbon fluxes to the atmosphere.
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Received: 23 July 2013
Revised: 12 October 2013
Accepted: 15 October 2013
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Corresponding Author:
JIA Gen-Suo
E-mail: jiong@tea.ac.cn
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