Relationships Among Groundwater Depth, Vegetation Dynamics, and Evapotranspiration in an Arid Basin: Identification of Groundwater-Dependent Vegetation Ecosystems and Ecological Reference Thresholds
This research aims to identify groundwater-dependent vegetation ecosystems and establish ecological reference thresholds for groundwater levels.
Integrated multi-source remote-sensing data (2005–2025) with in situ groundwater monitoring in the Daihai Basin.
Utilized improved Mann–Kendall test and spatiotemporal correlation analyses to assess vegetation-grounwater relationships.
Analyzed vegetation dynamics and established groundwater reference thresholds for ecological assessment.
Basin-wide vegetation shows a greening trend with a Sen’s slope of 0.00014 and spatial heterogeneity.
Vegetation dependence on groundwater demonstrates threshold behavior; low-cover areas (FVC < 0.3) have a strong dependency (r = 0.698) while high-cover areas are weaker.
Estimated ecological groundwater reference thresholds are 1.0 m for forest land (90% assurance) and 0.6 m for grass land (80% assurance).