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Chinese Journal of Applied Ecology ›› 2012, Vol. 23 ›› Issue (02): 307-318.

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Characteristics of terrestrial ecosystem primary productivity in East Asia based on remote sensing and process-based model.

ZHANG Fang-min1, JU Wei-min2, CHEN Jing-ming3, WANG Shao-qiang4, YU Gui-rui4, HAN Shi-jie5   

  1. 1College of Applied Meteorology, Nanjing University of Information Science & Technology, Nanjing 210044, China; 2International Institute for Earth System Science, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210093, China; 3Department of Geography and Program in Planning, University of Toronto, Toronto M5S 3G3, Canada; 4Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy Sciences, Beijing 100101, China; 5State Key Laboratory of Forest and Soil Ecology, Institute of Applied Ecology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shenyang 110164, China
  • Online:2012-02-18 Published:2012-02-18

Abstract: Based on the bi-linearly interpolated meteorological reanalysis data from National Centers for Environmental Prediction, USA and by using the leaf area index data derived from the GIMMS NDVI to run the process-based Boreal Ecosystems Productivity Simulator (BEPS) model, this paper simulated and analyzed the spatiotemporal characteristics of the terrestrial ecosystem gross primary productivity (GPP) and net primary productivity (NPP) in East Asia in 2000-2005. Before regional simulating and calculating, the observation GPP data of different terrestrial ecosystem  in 15 experimental stations of AsiaFlux network and the inventory measurements of NPP at 1300 sampling sites were applied to validate the BEPS GPP and NPP. The results showed that BEPS could well simulate the changes in  GPP and NPP of different terrestrial ecosystems, with the R2 ranging from 0.86 to 0.99  and the root mean square error (RMSE) from 0.2 to 1.2 g C·m-2·d-1. The simulated values by BEPS could explain 78% of the changes in annual NPP, and the RMSE was 118 g C·m-2·a-1. In 2000-2005, the averaged total GPP and total NPP of the terrestrial ecosystems in East Asia were 21.7 and 10.5 Pg C·a-1, respectively, and the GPP and NPP exhibited similar spatial and temporal variation patterns. During the six years, the total NPP of the terrestrial ecosystems varied from 10.2 to 10.7 Pg C·a-1, with a coefficient of variation being 22%. High NPP (above 1000 g C·m-2·a-1) occurred in the southeast island countries, while low NPP (below 30 g C·m-2·a-1) occurred in the desert area of Northwest China. The spatial patterns of  NPP were mainly attributed to the differences in the climatic variables across East Asia. The NPP per capita also varied greatly among different countries, which was the highest (70217 kg C·a-1) in Mongolia, far higher than that (1921 kg C·a-1) in China, and the lowest (757 kg C·a-1) in India.

Key words: net primary productivity (NPP), gross primary productivity (GPP), BEPS model, East Asia, carbon cycle