Vegetation growth speed in response to compound drought heat events across China
Compound drought heat events (CDHEs) are simultaneous drought and heat extremes that cause more severe damage to humans and ecosystems than individual extremes. China has experienced the most notable vegetation greening worldwide over the past four decades. However, the response of vegetation growth...
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| Main Authors: | , , , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-09-01
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| Series: | Ecological Indicators |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1470160X25010027 |
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| Summary: | Compound drought heat events (CDHEs) are simultaneous drought and heat extremes that cause more severe damage to humans and ecosystems than individual extremes. China has experienced the most notable vegetation greening worldwide over the past four decades. However, the response of vegetation growth speed (VGS) to CDHE remains unclear. In this study, we assessed VGS responses to CDHEs across China’s diverse humid and arid climate zones from 1982 to 2020 using a geographical detector and interpretable machine learning. Our findings indicate a general increase in CDHEs with 56 %–94 % of the total number of regions across different humid and arid zones experiencing an upward trend. The nonlinear interaction between drought and heat significantly amplifies their combined effects. The lag time of VGS’s response to CDHEs was not constant. On average, arid regions exhibited a longer lag time of 3.96 months, whereas semiarid regions had the shortest, at 2.76 months. In addition, VGS demonstrated higher heat sensitivity during compound events, with increased responsiveness to drought and heat in arid and humid zones, whereas sensitivity decreased in wet–dry transition zones. These findings improve our understanding of vegetation growth dynamics in responses to CDHEs, providing crucial insights for ecosystem adaptation and mitigation strategies. |
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| ISSN: | 1470-160X |