LAUSR

ABSTRACT Carbon use efficiency (CUE) of vegetation in Western Sichuan Plateau (WSP) can influence ecological safety and economic development in the Sichuan Basin and Yangtze River Basin in addition to its importance in determining local ecological environment and development of animal husbandry. Temporal-spatial variations of vegetation CUE as well as its responses to climate changes were investigated through trend analysis and grey relational analysis (GRA) by combining data from meteorological stations, vegetation types and elevation data from WSP. Moreover, the influences of human activities on vegetation CUE were analysed. The results showed that the variation trend of CUE in WSP was unclear, and the variation rate was between −0.11 and 0.10 (per decade) during the growing seasons from 2001 to 2018. Among the climate factors, sunshine duration influenced vegetation CUE mostly, followed by precipitation and air temperature successively. The lagged time of response of vegetation CUE to precipitation was not significant, but to air temperature and sunshine duration was 1–2 months. Human activities have only a slight influence on vegetation CUE in WSP.