Trends in vegetation productivity related to climate change in China’s Pearl River Delta

represent the sensitivity of vegetation productivity to changes in the respective climatic vari- able on a seasonal basis, and this would suggest the potential time frame of vegetative response to an extreme event such as drought, heatwave or extreme cold. In all ecosystem types, signifi- cant lag times are observed (Fig 7), although those for cropland will be strongly influenced by planting patterns and the initially lower vegetation productivity. Cropland shows higher responses to both rainfall and temperature, than do the natural ecosystems, no doubt because planting is timed to coincide with a favourable climate, and the lag times for cropland are no doubt controlled by the time taken for crop development under the favourable rainfall and Fig 7. Lag time of NDVI to precipitation and temperature. Lag times for (a) rainfall and (b) temperature to NDVI, of different LUCL classes, the pixel-wise lag time for maximum correlation of (c) rainfall and (d) temperature with NDVI. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245467.g007 PLOS ONE Climate and vegetation trends in the Pearl River Delta PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0245467 February 24, 2021 12 / 20