Assessment of Phenological Dynamics of Different Vegetation Types and Their Environmental Drivers with Near-Surface Remote Sensing: A Case Study on the Loess Plateau of China

Abstract

Plant phenology is an important indicator of the impact of climate change on ecosystems. We have continuously monitored vegetation phenology using near-surface remote sensing, i.e., the PhenoCam in a gully region of the Loess Plateau of China from March 2020 to November 2022. In each image, three regions of interest (ROIs) were selected to represent different types of vegetation (scrub, arbor, and grassland), and five vegetation indexes were calculated within each ROI. The results showed that the green chromatic coordinate (GCC), excess green index (ExG), and vegetation contrast index (VCI) all well-captured seasonal changes in vegetation greenness. The PhenoCam captured seasonal trajectories of different vegetation that reflect differences in vegetation growth. Such differences may be influenced by external abiotic environmental factors. We analyzed the nonlinear response of the GCC series to environmental variables with the generalized additive model (GAM). Our results suggested that soil temperature was an important driver affecting plant phenology in the Loess gully region, especially the scrub showed a significant nonlinear response to soil temperature change. Since in situ phenology monitoring experiments of the small-scale on the Loess Plateau are still relatively rare, our work provides a reference for further understanding of vegetation phenological variations and ecosystem functions on the Loess Plateau.