Estimation of Chinese grassland productivity using remote sensing

It is important to study grassland productivity for evaluating the food supply of the grassland ecosystem. Based on a 1 km Chinese land cover product and a 1 km Chinese vegetation NPP product of the year 2001 using MODIS data, the authors use several grassland productivity evaluating models to calculate some Chinese grassland productivity indexes of the year 2001. The results indicate that in 2001, Chinese dry grass yield is about 144 million tons, theoretic stock carrying capability is about 108 million sheep units, potential food supply ability is about 3089.2 thousand tons of sheep meat. The method for calculating grassland productivity using remote sensing has good mechanism and timeliness, can achieve yearly grassland productivity indexes of large area in short time, and the results match the actual distribution of Chinese grassland productivity well.