Monitoring Short-Term Trend Shifts and Long-Term Changes in Terrestrial Ecosystems: A Case Study of the Loess Plateau, China

The Loess Plateau (LP) is one of the most remarkable areas of vegetation restoration in China. Here, we applied a breakpoint analysis to the normalized difference vegetation index images of the LP from 1982 to 2015 to detect the most significant individual breaks in the time series. Our findings revealed that 73% of the areas on the LP experienced short-term trend shifts in vegetation. The largest proportion of these shifts occurred in the 2000s, accounting for 40%, mainly distributed in the northern part of Shaanxi Province. Positive shifts were more prevalent than negative shifts, with positive shifts concentrated in the 21st century and negative shifts primarily occurring in the 1990s. 57% of the areas with detected breakpoint showed positive long-term trends both before and after the shifts. The areas with negative trends after the shifts were mainly concentrated in the northwestern part of the LP.