Characterisation of Vegetation Response to Climate Change: A Review

Abstract

Climate change extreme events have consequential impacts that influence the responses of vegetation dynamics as well as ecosystem functioning and sustainable human well-being. Therefore, vegetation response to climate change (VRCC) needs to be explored to foster specific-organised management programmes towards ecological conservation and targeted restoration policy to various climate extreme threats. This review aimed to explore the existing literature to characterise VRCC and to identify solutions and techniques fundamental in designing strategies for targeted effective adaptation and mitigation to achieve sustainable planning outcomes. Accordingly, this review emphasised recent theoretical and practical research on the vegetation-climate responses and their related impacts in the wake of climate change and its debilitating impacts on vegetation. Consequently, this study proposes the Information-based model (IBM), needed to examine Factors–forms of Impacts–Solutions (Techniques)–Risks assessment to identify and provide insights about VRCC in a given region. In conclusion, two enablers of adaptive indicators and the novel systems-based serve as a key policy formulation for sustainability in strengthening the goals of global involvement of local and sub-national governments and institutions in the effective management of vegetation and ecosystem protection.