Change of Snow Cover and Its Impact on Alpine Vegetation in the Source Regions of Large Rivers on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau, China

Abstract Based on a Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) and remote sensing data of snow cover, we analyzed the variation in NDVI in relation to trends in snow cover and vegetation of the source regions of large rivers on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. We then calculated the relationship between snow cover duration, snow depth, and NDVI to reveal the effect of snow cover change on vegetation growth on a regional scale. The results show that both snow depth and duration tend to reduce gradually from northeast to southwest on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Furthermore, snow cover duration (snow depth > 0 cm) has high interannual fluctuation and generally shows an increasing trend (P 0.05) from 1980 to 2004. The snow cover characteristics (duration and depth) are insignificantly corr...