From Browning to Greening: Climate-Driven Vegetation Change in the Irtysh River Basin After the Global Warming Hiatus
Feng S. Abuduwaili J. Issanova G. Saparov G. Ma L.
April 2025Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute (MDPI)
Remote Sensing
2025#17Issue 7
The Irtysh River Basin (IRB), a transboundary river basin spanning China, Kazakhstan, and Russia, has experienced significant vegetation changes driven by climate change and human activities. This study investigated the spatiotemporal dynamics of different types of vegetation in the IRB from 2001 to 2020 using the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and quantified the contributions of driving forces to the evolution of vegetation. The results revealed that the end of the global warming hiatus in 2013 aggravated climate changes, leading to an abrupt shift in NDVI dynamics. This spatial shift was mainly reflected in grassland and farmland in the arid regions of northern Kazakhstan, where overall vegetation cover has improved in recent years. Precipitation and temperature were identified as the main drivers of spatial vegetation differentiation in the basin, with precipitation being more limiting in arid regions, while temperature affected non-arid regions at higher latitudes more strongly, and climate change had a greater positive effect on vegetation in non-arid regions than in arid regions. The relative contribution of climatic factors to vegetation changes decreased from 45.93% before the abrupt change to 42.65% after the abrupt change, while the contribution of other drivers, including human activities, increased from 54.07% to 57.35%. The combined effect of climate change and human activities was more significant than that of individual drivers, with human interventions such as environmental policies and ecological restoration projects having strongly contributed to the greening trend in recent years. This study highlights the need for zonal management strategies in the IRB, prioritizing sustainable forest management in non-arid zones and sustaining environmental protection projects in arid regions to support vegetation restoration and sustainable ecosystem management.
Central Asia , climate change , global warming hiatus , greening trend , transboundary river basin , vegetation dynamics
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State Key Laboratory of Ecological Safety and Sustainable Development in Arid Lands, Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, 830011, China
Research Center for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Urumqi, 830011, China
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China
Sino-Kazakhstan Joint Laboratory for Remote Sensing Technology and Applications, Almaty, 050040, Kazakhstan
Faculty of Geography and Environment, Al-Farabi Kazakh National University, Almaty, 050040, Kazakhstan
Kazakh Research Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry Named After U. U. Uspanov, Almaty, 050060, Kazakhstan
State Key Laboratory of Ecological Safety and Sustainable Development in Arid Lands
Research Center for Ecology and Environment of Central Asia
University of Chinese Academy of Sciences
Sino-Kazakhstan Joint Laboratory for Remote Sensing Technology and Applications
Faculty of Geography and Environment
Kazakh Research Institute of Soil Science and Agrochemistry Named After U. U. Uspanov
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