Abstract
To understand the spatiotemporal variations of vegetation greenness and the differences in its response to climate and human activities based on land cover change in subtropical region, this paper focused on the spatiotemporal characteristics of vegetation greenness (indicated by NDVI) and its sensitivity to temperature, precipitation and human activities (indicated by nighttime light (NTL)) under different land cover scenarios in Guangdong, China. The contributions of climate and human activities under land cover change to the variations in vegetation greenness were quantified using Lindeman, Merenda and Gold method (LMG). The conclusions revealed that (1) NDVI was significantly higher in regions with land cover change. This might be because the conversion from grassland to evergreen forest increased vegetation density. (2) NDVI in regions with unchanged land cover exhibited higher correlations with temperature and NTL. At the grid scale, NDVI was more sensitive to temperature rather than precipitation and was significantly correlated with NTL in most regions. (3) At the province scale, LMG multivariate regression model indicated that land cover change was the dominant factor affecting vegetation greenness with a contribution of 54.2%, while the contribution of climate factors was relatively low with temperature contributing 18.2% which was greater than the contribution of precipitation (2.2%). This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms underlying vegetation responses to the combined effects of climate change and human activities, providing a scientific basis for regional ecological quality assessment and ecosystem management.
Similar content being viewed by others
Resistance of vegetation sensitivity to climate and human activities under short-term drought in subtropical humid region: a case study of Guangdong, China
Effects of climate change and anthropogenic activities on vegetation coverage changes in the Taihang Mountains, China
Identifying time-lag effects of temperature and precipitation on vegetation growth variation in the lower Yellow River of east China
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2025A1515011042), National Natural Science Foundation of China (42404066) and the research foundation of Lingnan Normal University (ZL22034).
Funding
This work was supported by Guangdong Basic and Applied Basic Research Foundation (2025A1515011042), National Natural Science Foundation of China (42404066) and the research foundation of Lingnan Normal University (ZL22034).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Wu, Y., Lei, Y., Fan, A. et al. Vegetation greenness dynamics and responses to climate and human activities under land cover change in Guangdong, China.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-59533-4
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-59533-4
Keywords
- Vegetation greenness
- Climate
- Nighttime light
- Land cover change
- Subtropical region
Source: Ecology - nature.com
