Spatial disparity of NDVI response in vegetation growing season to climate change in the Three-River Headwaters Region

The purpose of this paper is to analyze spatial differentiation of NDVI response to the climate change in vegetation growing season, which is from mid-May to September, using NDVI, temperature and precipitation of 31 climate stations from 1999 to 2008. The results showed that the linear correlation of NDVI to temperature and precipitation in the west of BaYanKaLa mountain was more widespread than that in the eastern part; Spatial differentiation was obvious in different altitude area, and 5 300 meters was the highest one with linear correlation. It was also found that the response of NDVI to climate factors were mainly showed as posi-tive relation to the temperature and negative correlation to the precipitation. It could be concluded that the water condition was better than temperature and temperature was regarded as a leading factor for vegetation change during vegetation growing season in the Three-River Headwaters Region. Moreover, the impact of temperature on NDVI worked through directly positive correlation be-tween temperature and NDVI and indirectly negative correlation between precipitation and NDVI.