China’s deserts greening and response to climate variability and human activities

Vegetation, which is a good indicator of the impacts of climate variability and human activities, can reflect desert ecosystem dynamics. To reveal the vegetation variations in China’s deserts, trends in the monthly, seasonal, and annual normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) from 2000 to 2017 were measured both temporally and spatially by the Theil-Sen estimator and Mann-Kendall test. Additionally, correlation coefficients and residual analysis were employed to evaluate the correlations between the NDVI and climatic factors and to distinguish the impacts of climate variability and human activities. The results showed that China’s deserts underwent greening. The annual NDVI showed a significant increasing trend at a rate of 0.0018/yr, with values of 0.094 in 2000 and 0.126 in 2017. Significant increasing trends in NDVI were observed in all four seasons. The NDVI were higher in summer and autumn than in spring and winter. Both the monthly NDVI and its trends showed an inverted U-shaped curve during the year. Spatially, the greening trends were mainly distributed on the southern edge of the Gurbantunggut Desert, in the northwestern part of the Taklimakan Desert, and in the Kubuqi Desert. The correlations between the NDVI and climatic factors at the monthly and seasonal scales were stronger than those at the annual scale. Temperature and precipitation had positive effects on NDVI at the monthly and seasonal scales, but only precipitation had a positive effect at the annual scale. Human activities, especially oasis expansion and sand stabilization measures, were two major causes of large increasing areas of desert greening in China indicated by the NDVI.