Water Use Efficiency Spatiotemporal Change and Its Driving Analysis on the Mongolian Plateau

Water use efficiency (WUE) connects two key processes in terrestrial ecosystems: the carbon and water cycles. Thus, it is important to evaluate temporal and spatial changes in WUE over a prolonged period. The spatiotemporal variation characteristics of the WUE in the Mongolian Plateau from 1982 to 2018 were analyzed based on the net primary productivity (NPP), evapotranspiration (ET), temperature, precipitation, and soil moisture. In this study, we used remote sensing data and various statistical methods to evaluate the spatiotemporal patterns of water use efficiency and their potential influencing factors on the Mongolian Plateau from 1982 to 2018. In total, 27.02% of the region witnessed a significant decline in the annual WUE over the 37 years. Two abnormal surges in the WUE_Season (April–October) were detected, from 1997 to 1998 and from 2007 to 2009. The trend in the annual WUE in some broadleaf forest areas in the middle and northeast of the Mongolian Plateau reversed from the original decreasing trend to an increasing trend. WUE has shown strong resilience in previous analytical studies, whereas the WUE in the artificial vegetation area in the middle of the Mongolian Plateau showed weak resilience. WUE had a significant positive correlation with precipitation, soil moisture, and the drought severity index (DSI) but a weak correlation with temperature. WUE had strong resistance to abnormal water disturbances; however, its resistance to the effects of temperature and DSI anomalies was weak. The degree of interpretation of vegetation changes for WUE was higher than that for meteorological factors, and WUE showed weak resistance to normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) disturbances. Delaying the start of the vegetation growing season had an increasing effect on WUE, and the interaction between phenological and meteorological vegetation factors had a non-linear enhancing effect on WUE. Human activities have contributed significantly to the increase in WUE in the eastern, central, and southern regions of the Mongolian Plateau. These results provide a reference for the study of the carbon–water cycle in the Mongolian Plateau.