Wang et al. (2026) Shifts in the Decoupling and Driving Mechanisms of Grassland Greening and Water Availability in the Northern Hemisphere

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Identification

• Journal: Remote Sensing
• Year: 2026
• Date: 2026-03-07
• Authors: Gongxin Wang, Haiwei Zhang, Yuqing Shao, Changqing Jing
• DOI: 10.3390/rs18050829

Research Groups

Not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.

Short Summary

This study systematically assessed the spatiotemporal evolution and trend divergence of grassland greening (leaf area index, LAI) and water availability (WA) across the Northern Hemisphere from 2000 to 2100, revealing a historical widespread decoupling (greening with declining WA) that is projected to reverse in the future, with shifts in dominant climatic drivers.

Objective

• To systematically assess the spatiotemporal evolution and trend divergence of leaf area index (LAI) and water availability (WA) across Northern Hemisphere grasslands from 2000 to 2100.

Study Configuration

• Spatial Scale: Northern Hemisphere grasslands
• Temporal Scale: 2000–2100 (historical period: 2000–2020; future projections up to 2100)

Methodology and Data

• Models used: CMIP6 model ensembles
• Data sources: Multi-source satellite observations

Main Results

• Grassland LAI exhibited sustained growth during 2000–2020, with 55.28% of regions showing significant increasing trends.
• During the historical period, 73.67% of grassland regions experienced declining WA, indicating widespread decoupling between grassland greening and water deficit.
• Future scenario projections (under SSP5–8.5) indicated a reversal to increasing WA trends, with 57.51% of regions showing significant increases.
• Greening-driven drying (GDD) characterized 61.87% of grasslands historically, while greening-driven wetting (GDW) regions are projected to expand to 72.44% in the future.
• Humid zones contributed most prominently to LAI and WA changes.
• Grassland WA changes shifted from precipitation-dominated control (53.60%) historically toward a regime jointly governed by precipitation dominance and coupled precipitation–evapotranspiration drivers in the future.
• The dominant factor controlling grassland greening transitioned from vapor-pressure deficit (VPD) to temperature (TEM) control.
• Driving factors for greening exhibited pronounced differentiation along aridity gradients historically: arid zones were dominated by soil moisture (SM), semi-arid zones by dual control of SM and VPD, and humid zones by coupled TEM-VPD regulation.

Contributions

• Reveals the divergent trends between grassland greening and water availability across the Northern Hemisphere.
• Unravels the underlying driving mechanisms for these trends and their shifts over time and across aridity gradients.
• Provides scientific evidence for formulating regionally differentiated ecological water resource management strategies.

Funding

Not explicitly mentioned in the provided text.

Citation

@article{Wang2026Shifts,
  author = {Wang, Gongxin and Zhang, Haiwei and Shao, Yuqing and Jing, Changqing},
  title = {Shifts in the Decoupling and Driving Mechanisms of Grassland Greening and Water Availability in the Northern Hemisphere},
  journal = {Remote Sensing},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.3390/rs18050829},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.3390/rs18050829}
}