TITLE:
Correlation between Climate Factors and Vegetation Cover in Qinghai Province, China
AUTHORS:
Yousif Elnour Yagoub, Zhongqin Li, Omer Said Musa, Muhammad Naveed Anjum, Feiteng Wang, Yanqun Bi, Bo Zhang
KEYWORDS:
Land Cover Change, Climate Factors, NDVI, Qinghai Province
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Geographic Information System,
Vol.9 No.4,
July
24,
2017
ABSTRACT: The Qinghai Province, situated in the northwest of China, is experiencing a
continuous warming which is approximately three times more than the rate of
global warming. This ongoing warming has a direct connection to vegetation
cover, with significant societal and economic impacts in this region. In the
present study, we investigate the correlation between climate change and vegetation
cover in Qinghai Province. Analysis shows that in the Qinghai Province,
order of NDVI is highest in summer followed by autumn, spring and
winter. By calculating the average annual and seasonal-NDVI values, it is deduced
that the main type of vegetation cover in the Qinghai Province has an
upward trend at the rate of 0.013/10a, 0.016/10a, 0.035/10a and 0.058/10a for
annual, winter, spring and summer, respectively. While a downward trend at
a rate of 0.056/10a is present in autumn-NDVI. At the 0.01% significance level,
a significant positive relationship of winter-NDVI with mean winter precipitation
and temperature is revealed. Mean NDVI of spring and autumn show
a significant positive relationship with respective seasonal mean precipitation.
However, a significant difference is present between mean summer-NDVI and
mean summer precipitation. Furthermore, mean NDVI of summer and autumn
has a significant negative relationship with respective seasonal mean
temperature.