Greening of India: Forests or Croplands?

IF 4 2区地球科学 Q1 GEOGRAPHY

Applied Geography Pub Date : 2023-10-19 DOI:10.1016/j.apgeog.2023.103115

Jayanarayanan Kuttippurath, Rahul Kashyap

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Abstract

There are substantial changes in global green cover owing to anthropogenic activities and climate change. Here, we estimate the long-term changes in India's green cover, and its contribution from croplands and forests using satellite-based Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and Leaf Area Index (LAI) for the period of 2000–2019. The change in Solar Induced Fluorescence (SiF) is also estimated to understand the variability in the photosynthetic activity and productivity. The increase in NDVI (10%), LAI (11%) and SiF (13%) suggests that India has been greening in the past two decades, which added 996640 km² of new leaf area during the period. The net vegetated land in India is substantially greening (62.5% area) and marginally browning (14% area). Interestingly, the magnitude of greening in croplands is twice the forests, and is predominant in Zaid (70% area) agricultural season. Therefore, the croplands drive (86.5% contribution) greening of India in the past two decades. The enhanced greening of croplands can be attributed to improved irrigation facilities, as demonstrated by the larger Net Irrigated Area (NIA) and Irrigated Sown Area (ISA). In addition, the effective cropland management, farm mechanisation and use of nitrogen fertilisers are also key to this cropland-based greening in India.

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印度绿化:森林还是农田?

由于人类活动和气候变化，全球绿色覆盖率发生了重大变化。在这里，我们使用基于卫星的归一化差异植被指数（NDVI）和叶面积指数（LAI）估计了2000-2009年期间印度绿色覆盖的长期变化，以及农田和森林的贡献。还估计了太阳诱导荧光（SiF）的变化，以了解光合活性和生产力的变化。NDVI（10%）、LAI（11%）和SiF（13%）的增加表明，印度在过去二十年中一直在绿化，在此期间增加了996640平方公里的新叶面积。印度的净植被土地基本上是绿化的（62.5%的面积）和轻度褐变的（14%的面积）。有趣的是，农田的绿化规模是森林的两倍，在扎伊德（70%的面积）农业季节占主导地位。因此，在过去的二十年里，农田推动了印度的绿化（86.5%的贡献）。农田绿化的增强可归因于灌溉设施的改善，如更大的净灌溉面积（NIA）和灌溉播种面积（ISA）所示。此外，有效的农田管理、农场机械化和氮肥的使用也是印度农田绿化的关键。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Applied Geography GEOGRAPHY-

CiteScore

8.00

自引率

2.00%

发文量

134

期刊介绍： Applied Geography is a journal devoted to the publication of research which utilizes geographic approaches (human, physical, nature-society and GIScience) to resolve human problems that have a spatial dimension. These problems may be related to the assessment, management and allocation of the world physical and/or human resources. The underlying rationale of the journal is that only through a clear understanding of the relevant societal, physical, and coupled natural-humans systems can we resolve such problems. Papers are invited on any theme involving the application of geographical theory and methodology in the resolution of human problems.