Comparing the interannual variability of NDVI of croplands over China and India for the period 1982-2006: socioeconomic versus climatic drivers of change.
Abstract
China and India, holding the world's largest populations, have in the matter of a few decades moved from being among the poorest nations to becoming the fastest growing economies. The broadly similar economic goals of these two countries have been pursued under significantly different governing institutions and policies. Here we compare the effects of the different socio-economic trajectories of China and India on the patterns of vegetation greenness over cropland areas inferred from coarse resolution remote sensing data and their sensitivity to ongoing and future climate changes. For this purpose we analyze 1982-2006 NOAA/AVHRR Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) from the GIMMS data set along with climate data and socio-economic statistics. We find that the 1982-2006 NDVI patterns over India are characterized by a strong significant upward trend linked to a recent expansion of minor irrigation projects, which are heavily relying on groundwater exploitation and may now have reached a limit due to exhaustion of resources and increased sensitivity to climate changes. In China, large scale agricultural development preceding the 1980s has brought the NDVI over Chinese cropland to much higher values than over India, reflecting the much higher use of fertilizer and crop yields. After a period of increasing NDVI trends up to the late 1990s, previously documented as the result of a longer growing season due to increased spring temperatures, NDVI has declined, likely reflecting a more recent focus of China on industrial rather than agricultural growth. This study highlights the strong coupling of the socioeconomic and physical environment at scales relevant to ecosystem and climate models.
- Publication:
-
AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2008
- Bibcode:
- 2008AGUFMGC51A0677M
- Keywords:
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- 1600 GLOBAL CHANGE;
- 1616 Climate variability (1635;
- 3305;
- 3309;
- 4215;
- 4513);
- 1632 Land cover change;
- 1640 Remote sensing (1855);
- 9320 Asia