• Grassland growing seasons have significantly shortened across Northwest China. • A climatic shift from precipitation- to temperature-dominance drives phenological change. • Recreation demand is strongly synchronized with vegetation greenness patterns. • Spatial mismatches grow between ecological service supply and population demand. • An integrated multi-source framework links climate, phenology, and recreation dynamics. Grassland ecosystems provide vital ecological and cultural services. However, their phenological dynamics are becoming increasingly vulnerable to climate change, directly threatening the seasonal availability of recreational opportunities. This study investigated climate–phenology relationships at a regional scale across the grasslands of Northwest China and further linked phenological dynamics to recreational demand in seven representative grassland destinations. Drawing on multi-decadal satellite observations of vegetation indices, including the normalized difference vegetation index and the green vegetation index, climate reanalysis data, and online search–derived recreational demand indices, we identified a significant contraction of the growing season (−1.316 ± 0.761 days decade⁻¹, P < 0.1) between 1982 and 2022, primarily due to delayed green-up after 2013. Ridge regression analysis revealed a shift in climatic control from precipitation-dominated to temperature-dominated regimes, with warming and intensified drought stress emerging as the dominant drivers of phenological change. Recreational demand exhibited moderate-to-strong correlations with vegetation greenness ( r = 0.461–0.701), although this coupling weakened after 2020 owing to pandemic-related disruptions. The shortening of the growing season compresses the temporal window of scenic attractiveness and exacerbates spatial mismatches between ecological supply and urban demand. Our findings demonstrate that climate-induced phenological shifts directly constrain recreational services, with far-reaching implications for tourism sustainability, regional economies, and ecosystem resilience. We developed a coupled climate–phenology–recreation framework to guide adaptive governance and integrated management strategies, ensuring that grassland ecosystems can sustain their ecological and societal functions amid accelerating climate change.
Yuan et al. (Sun,) studied this question.