Impacts of Deforestation and Climate Variability on Terrestrial Evapotranspiration in Subarctic China

Although deforestation affects hydrological and climatic variables over tropical regions, its actual contributions to changes in evapotranspiration (ET) over subarctic China remain unknown. To establish a quantitative relationship between deforestation and terrestrial ET variations, we estimated ET using a semi-empirical Penman (SEMI-PM) algorithm driven by meteorological and satellite data at both local and regional scales. The results indicate that the estimated ET can be used to analyse the observed inter-annual variations. There is a statistically significant positive relationship between local-scale forest cover changes (∆F) and annual ET variations (∆ET) of the following form: ∆ET = 0.0377∆F – 2.11 (R2 = 0.43, p < 0.05). This relationship may be due to deforestation-induced increases in surface albedo and a reduction in the fractional vegetation cover (FVC). However, the El Niño/Southern Oscillation (ENSO), rather than deforestation, dominates the multi-decadal ET variability due to regional-scale wind speed changes, but the exact effects of deforestation and ENSO on ET are challenging to quantify. OPEN ACCESS Forests 2014, 5 2543