Different response of alpine meadow and alpine steppe to climatic and anthropogenic disturbance on the Tibetan Plateau

Abstract Climate change and anthropogenic disturbance are two main drivers for vegetation dynamics on the Tibetan Plateau (TP). Alpine meadow and alpine steppe are the primary rangeland ecosystem types on the TP. However, the vegetation trends of the two land cover types and the underlying mechanisms behind their variation remain under debate. In this study, we used Global Inventory Modeling and Mapping Studies (GIMMS) 3g Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) (i.e., GIMMS NDVI3g) by coupling the Breaks for Additive Season and Trend (BFAST) model and the Boosted Regression Tree (BRT) model to analyze alpine meadow and alpine steppe vegetation trends on the TP between 1982 and 2015. We also assessed vegetation variation response to climatic and anthropogenic indicators in conjunction with climatic and human footprint datasets. Results show that growing season NDVI (GSNDVI) values increased overall for both alpine meadow (0.0001 year-1, p=0.33) and alpine steppe (0.0002 year-1, p