Attributions of Evapotranspiration and Gross Primary Production Changes in Semi-Arid Region: A Case Study in the Water Source Area of the Xiong’an New Area in North China

Abstract

Investigating the attributions of evapotranspiration (ET) and gross primary production (GPP) changes is of great importance for regional, sustainable water resources and ecological management in semi-arid regions. Based on the simulation conducted during 2000–2019 by improving water-carbon coupling Distributed Time Variant Gain Model, the trends of ET and GPP were estimated and the driving factors were identified via 10 experimental scenarios in the water source area of the Xiong’an New Area in North China. The results show significant increases both in ET and GPP by 2.4 mm/a and 6.0 gC/m2/a in the region, respectively. At the annual scale, increasing precipitation dominates the ET uptrend. Air temperature, humidity and the interactive effects also contribute to the ET uptrend, and the contributions are 12.8%, 2.0% and 2.3%, respectively, while elevated atmospheric CO2 concentration (eCO2) and solar dimming lead to ET changes of about −7.2% and −12.4%, respectively. For the GPP changes, the increase in GPP is mainly caused by eCO2, increasing precipitation and rising temperature with the contributions of 56.7%, 34.8% and 27.8%, respectively. Solar dimming, humidity and windspeed contribute −6.8%, −4.8% and −3.5% of the GPP changes. Compared to climate change, land use and cover change has smaller effects on both ET and GPP for the few changes in land coverage. At the seasonal scale, ET and GPP increase to a greater extent during the growing season in spring and summer than in autumn and winter. Precipitation, temperature and eCO2 are generally the main causes for ET and GPP changes. Meanwhile, the decreasing humidity and rising temperature are dominant factors for ET and GPP increases, respectively, in winter. Furthermore, solar dimming has strong effects on ET reduction in autumn. The contribution of the interactive effects is much higher on a seasonal scale than annual scale, contributing to considerable decreases in ET and GPP in spring, increases in ET in autumn and winter, and an increase in GPP in winter. This study highlights the importance of considering water-carbon coupling on the attributions of ET and GPP changes and the differentiation of the effects by the abovementioned influential factors at annual and seasonal scales.