The Resilience of Vegetation to the 2009/2010 Extreme Drought in Southwest China

The 2009/2010 extreme drought in southwest China (SWC) was a “once-in-a-century” event, which caused unprecedented damage to the regional ecology and socioeconomic development. event provided chance explore resilience of vegetation growth productivity drought. Here, we used self-calibrating Palmer severity index (scPDSI) describe characteristics Vegetation indices, including normalized difference (NDVI), leaf area (LAI), gross primary (GPP), were applied analyze different types Our results showed that occurred mainly Yunnan Province, Guizhou central northern Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, northwestern Sichuan Province. spatial heterogeneity related temperature increase water deficit. During drought, evergreen broadleaf forest least suppressed, whereas cropland greatly suppressed. recovery higher than forest. NDVI LAI recovered more 80% drought-affected within 5 months, GPP required longer time recover. Moreover, multiple linear regression an surface soil moisture able significantly improve resistance forest, needleleaf shrubland, deciduous grassland. study highlights differences indicates is important factor affecting SWC.