Vegetation Greenness Variations and Response to Climate Change in the Arid and Semi-Arid Transition Zone of the Mongo-Lian Plateau during 1982–2015

Vegetation greenness dynamics in arid and semi-arid regions are sensitive to climate change, which is an important phenomenon in global climate change research. However, the driving mechanism, particularly for the longitudinal and latitudinal changes in vegetation greenness related to climate change, has been less studied and remains poorly understood in arid and semi-arid areas. In this study, we investigated changes in vegetation greenness and the vegetation greenness line (the mean growing season normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) = 0.1 contour line) and its response to climate change based on AVHRR-GIMMS NDVI3g and the fifth and latest global climate reanalysis dataset from 1982 to 2015 in the arid and semi-arid transition zone of the Mongolian Plateau (ASTZMP). The results showed that the mean growing season NDVI increased from the central west to east, northeast, and southeast in ASTZMP. The vegetation greenness line migrated to the desert during 1982–1994, to the grassland during 1994–2005, and then to the desert during 2005–2015. Vegetation greenness was positively correlated with precipitation and negatively correlated with temperature. The latitudinal variation of the vegetation greenness line was mainly affected by the combination of precipitation and temperature, while the longitudinal variation was mainly affected by precipitation. In summary, precipitation was a key climatic factor driving rapid changes in vegetation greenness during the growing season of the transition zone. These results can provide meaningful information for research on vegetation coverage changes in arid and semi-arid regions.