Effects of groundwater level on vegetation in the arid area of western China

At present, investigation about the relationship between the change of groundwater level and vegetation mostly focuses on specific watersheds, i.e. limited in river catchment scale. Understanding the change of groundwater level on vegetation in the basin or large scale, be urgently needed. To fill this gap, two typical arid areas in the west of China (Tarim Basin and Qaidam Basin) were chosen the a typical research area. The vegetation status was evaluated via normalization difference vegetation index (NDVI) from 2000 to 2016, sourced from MODN1F dataset. The data used to reflect climate change were download from CMDSC (http://data.cma.cn). Groundwater level data was collected from monitor wells. Then, the relationship of vegetation and climate change was established with univariate linear regression and correlation analysis approach. Results show that: Generally, NDVI value in the study area decreased before 2004 then increased in the research period. Severe degradation was observed in the center of the basin. The area with an NDVI value > 0.5 decreased from 12% to 6% between 2000 and 2004. From 2004 to 2014, the vegetation in the study area was gradually restored. The whole coverage of Qaidam Basin was low. And the NDVI around East Taigener salt-lake degraded significantly, from 0.596 to 0.005, 2014 and 2016, respectively. The fluctuation of groundwater level is the main reason for the change of surface vegetation coverage during the vegetation degradation in the basin. However, the average annual precipitation in the study area is low, which is not enough to have a significant impact on vegetation growth. The annual average precipitation showed an increase trend during the vegetation restoration in the basin, which alleviates the water shortage of vegetation growth in the region. Meanwhile, the dependence of surface vegetation on groundwater is obviously weakened with the correlation index is −0.248. The research results are of some significance to eco-environment protection in the arid area of western China.