Guan et al. (2025) Widespread Declining Sensitivity of Chinese Forests to Soil Moisture Under Climate Change (2001–2020)

⚠️ Warning: This summary was generated from the abstract only, as the full text was not available.

Identification

• Journal: Forests
• Year: 2025
• Date: 2025-12-22
• Authors: Ying Guan, Xingfang Pei, Long Chen, Huiying Chen, Zhenhua Zhou, Guanjun Liu, Yi Luo
• DOI: 10.3390/f17010015

Research Groups

Not explicitly stated in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study systematically quantified the spatiotemporal patterns and driving mechanisms of forest growth sensitivity to soil moisture in Chinese forests from 2001 to 2020, revealing a significant "soil moisture desensitization" process primarily driven by solar radiation, precipitation, and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

Objective

• To systematically quantify the sensitivity of forest growth status to soil moisture, reveal its spatiotemporal patterns, and identify the dominant driving mechanisms in Chinese forests.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: National scale, covering Chinese forests.
• Temporal Scale: 20 years (2001–2020), focusing on the growing season.

Methodology and Data

• Models used: Not explicitly stated; analysis appears to be data-driven statistical and attribution analysis.
• Data sources: Satellite-derived vegetation indices (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI), Leaf Area Index (LAI)) and Gross Primary Production (GPP) data. Additional data for attribution included solar radiation, precipitation, and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration.

Main Results

• Chinese forests are undergoing a significant "soil moisture desensitization" process, indicated by a declining trend in the absolute correlation coefficient (|r| trend < 0, p < 0.05).
• Forest growth status significantly increased (p < 0.05), but sensitivity to soil moisture declined across 71% of forest areas, with only 26% showing increasing trends.
• The area of soil moisture deficit regions (r > 0, p < 0.05) sharply contracted from 27% to 5%, while surplus regions (r < 0, p < 0.05) expanded by 7%.
• Dominant factors driving sensitivity trends were solar radiation (~35%), precipitation (~25%), and atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (~17%).

Contributions

• Provides new insights into the hydrological response mechanisms of Chinese forests under climate change.
• Systematically quantifies the spatiotemporal patterns and driving mechanisms of forest growth sensitivity to soil moisture over a large scale and long period.
• Identifies a widespread "soil moisture desensitization" process in Chinese forests.
• Offers important implications for optimizing ecological management and climate adaptation strategies.

Funding

Not explicitly stated in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Guan2025Widespread,
  author = {Guan, Ying and Pei, Xingfang and Chen, Long and Chen, Huiying and Zhou, Zhenhua and Liu, Guanjun and Luo, Yi},
  title = {Widespread Declining Sensitivity of Chinese Forests to Soil Moisture Under Climate Change (2001–2020)},
  journal = {Forests},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.3390/f17010015},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/f17010015}
}