Estimation of Net Primary Productivity in Tibetan Plateau
青藏高原主要生态系统净初级生产力的估算

The Tibetan Plateau is the least human-disturbed region in the world. Its outstanding topographic features and ecological characteristics give it a fame of "Natural Lab" for global change research. An improved TEM model based on MODIS satellite data and field observations data during 2000-2002 were used to estimate annual net primary productivity (NPP) in the Tibetan Plateau. A validation by using the observed NPP at different sites shows that the estimated NPP is well agreed with the measured NPP. The simulated results show that the estimated annual primary productivity of the entire Tibetan Plateau is 302.44×1012 gC yr-1, among which forest NPP takes up 39.7% of the total, though forests comprise only 9.74% of the Tibetan Plateau region; NPP accumulation for summer is 246.7×1012 gC yr-1, which is 80% of the year total.