Three-decade urbanization effects on urban land surface phenology in the mid-high latitude Northern Hemisphere

Abstract

Urban vegetation phenology is a sensitive indicator of environmental changes and ecosystem responses to urbanization. Limited temporal coverage poses challenges to exploring the urbanization effect on vegetation phenology. In this paper, we adopt the double logistic model to characterize the decadal vegetation phenology dynamics of cities in the mid-high latitude Northern Hemisphere using composited images from Landsat satellites. We observe an advanced trend of the start of the season (SOS), delayed end of the season (EOS), and extended growing season length (GSL) of urban vegetation along with rapidly increased impervious surface area percentage (ISA%) over the past three decades (1991–2000, 2001–2010, and 2011–2020). The changes in LSP caused by urbanization were most pronounced in North America, followed by Europe and Asia. Globally, vegetation exhibited a consistent trend of earlier SOS along the urbanization gradients, with an average advancement of approximately 2.14 days per 5 % increase in ISA. EOS showed a delayed trend along the urbanization gradients, with an average delay of about 0.74 days per 5 % ISA. The advanced SOS and delayed EOS consequently contributed to a prolonged GSL with an overall extension rate of 2.87 days per 5 % ISA. Our results provide valuable insights into urbanization influences on vegetation phenology dynamics in cities over a long period and highlight the importance of considering the mechanisms driving the changes in vegetation phenology in response to urbanization.