Land Management Contributes significantly to observed Vegetation Browning in Syria during 2001–2018

Chen, Tiexi; Guo, Renjie; Yan, Qingyun; Chen, Xin; Zhou, Shengjie; Liang, Chuanzhuang; Wei, Xueqiong; Dolman, Han

doi:https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-1515-2022

Articles | Volume 19, issue 5

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-1515-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-1515-2022

© Author(s) 2022. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Articles | Volume 19, issue 5

Research article

|

17 Mar 2022

Research article |

| 17 Mar 2022

Land Management Contributes significantly to observed Vegetation Browning in Syria during 2001–2018

Tiexi Chen, Renjie Guo, Qingyun Yan, Xin Chen, Shengjie Zhou, Chuanzhuang Liang, Xueqiong Wei, and Han Dolman

Supplement

https://doi.org/10.5194/bg-19-1515-2022-supplement

Data sets

MCD12C1 MODIS/Terra+Aqua Land Cover Type Yearly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG Mark Friedl and Damien Sulla-Menashe https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MCD12C1.006

MOD13C2 MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices Monthly L3 Global 0.05Deg CMG Kamel Didan https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD13C2.006

CRU TS4.03: Climatic Research Unit (CRU) Time-Series (TS) version 4.03 of high-resolution gridded data of month-by-month variation in climate (Jan. 1901- Dec. 2018) I. C. Harris and P. D. Jones https://doi.org/10.5285/10d3e3640f004c578403419aac167d82

Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) FAO https://www.fao.org/aquastat/en/

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Short summary

Currently people are very concerned about vegetation changes and their driving factors, including natural and anthropogenic drivers. In this study, a general browning trend is found in Syria during 2001–2018, indicated by the vegetation index. We found that land management caused by social unrest is the main cause of this browning phenomenon. The mechanism initially reported here highlights the importance of land management impacts at the regional scale.