Dynamics of Vegetation Response to Seasonal Rainfall in the Gomati River Basin (India) using Earth Observation Data Sets

Abstract

Present study evaluates the vegetation responses towards the rainfall variability in the Gomati basin during 1901-2015. To accomplish the same, high resolution observed daily gridded rainfall data from India Meteorological Department (IMD) was analysed using non-parametric trend test. The long-term rainfall showed significant decreasing trend (α=0.05) which varied from -0.96 to -4.89 per year. Identified trends in rainfall were then evaluated in tandem with the basin-wide changes in the vegetation signatures during the recent extreme years (two pairs of dry and wet years). Each pair of extreme years was assessed for its seasonal Normalised Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) related to the seasonal rainfall variations with special emphasis to rice and wheat yields (major crops). Contribution of spatio-temporal occurrences of rainy days with that of the heavy rainfall events was also analysed. The findings suggest that the prevalent basin-wide longterm rainfall deficiency intensified during the extreme dry years e.g. 2002 and 2009 and impacted the health of vegetation in the basin. Vegetation of the basin was found closely related with rainfall variability; regular and well distributed occurrences of rainy days benefited the basin's vegetation as well as the yields of rice and wheat crops.

The impact of Heavy dust pollution reduces biodiversity by altering the metabolism and biochemical characteristics of Fagonia indica

“…At the temporal scale, CCA triplots showed that the density, frequency, cover, and important value of vegetation were highest in spring, followed by summer. It may be due to lower dust concentration in spring and summer which supported plant growth as revealed by (Prajapati and Tripathi, 2008) and high soil moisture in July followed by spring which favours vegetation growth as revealed by the study of (Bhatt et al, 2020) on impact of seasonal rainfall on vegetation dynamics.…”

Multivariate drought analysis for the temperature homogeneous regions of India: Lessons from the Gomati River basin

“…As the Gomati basin has been documented to have undergone dry years (Bhatt et al, 2020), it is probable that some of the rainfall deficit might have impacted the hydrological cycle in the basin. Here, correlation analysis (Section 3.5) method used by Wu et al (2021), was relied…”

“…Similarly, RAI, SSI, SRI, SSMI and so forth, individually lack capabilities to evaluate complex multidimensional phenomenon that any drought is due to, because of their single parameter based construct (Chen et al, 2020). The Gomati River system has been the focus of water quality investigations during the last two decades (Bhatt et al, 2020). The dimension of hydrology has only recently been considered for research, especially in terms of basin's response to variability in climate (Abeysingha et al, 2015;Mali et al, 2015Mali et al, , 2017Mali et al, , 2018Singh et al, 2013).…”

“…The Gomati River system has been the focus of water quality investigations during the last two decades (Bhatt et al, 2020). The dimension of hydrology has only recently been considered for research, especially in terms of basin's response to variability in climate (Abeysingha et al, 2015; 2017, 2018; Mali et al, 2015, 2017, 2018; Singh et al, 2013).…”

Vegetation Changing Patterns and Its Sensitivity to Climate Variability across Seven Major Watersheds in China

“…Nowadays, vegetation dynamics and strong associations between vegetation and climate change have been reported in various watersheds of the world [ 29 , 30 , 31 , 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ]. Olivares et al [ 34 ] reviewed the impact of climate change on lowland rainforests in the Amazon basin, and concluded that warming will limit plant species survival by decreasing vegetation productivity.…”