# Monitoring Vegetation Change and Its Potential Drivers in Inner Mongolia from 2000 to 2019
## 5 Conclusions  
Considering Inner Mongolia as the study area, and MODIS-NDVI, total annual precipitation, DEM, mean annual temperature, and data on nine other drivers, this study explored the spatiotemporal characteristics and drivers of NDVI change in Inner Mongolia using spatiotemporal abrupt change and trend analyses, significance tests, the Hurst index, and the GeoDetector model. The spatiotemporal evolution of the vegetation in Inner Mongolia was characterized, and the trend of breakpoints was used to predict the possible future direction of NDVI change, revealing the driving mechanisms and dominant drivers of the NDVI. The detailed conclusions are as follows:  
1. Considering the temporal trends in NDVI, the NDVI values in 2000-2019 in Inner Mongolia show an overall increasing trend in the range of 0.42-0.51, with small fluctuations and a growth rate of 0.0028/year (\(p<0.05\)). Considering the spatial trends in NDVI, the values in Inner Mongolia showed an overall gradually decreasing trend from east to west. During the past 20 years, areas with increased vegetation have been mainly located in the northeastern part of Inner Mongolia and in the western part of Erdos, and the majority of the stable and unchanging vegetation areas are located in the Gobi Desert region in the northwestern part of the Alexa League. Meanwhile, vegetation mainly decreased in the east-central part of Inner Mongolia. Furthermore, the overall decreasing trend increased from east to west. The Hurst Index analysis suggested that future changes will be opposite to those in the present. According to the NDVI trends overlaid with the Hurst Index classification results, areas with increasing vegetation are predicted to be larger those with decreasing vegetation. 2. The overall fluctuation in the NDVI in Inner Mongolia during the study period was small. The largest proportion of regions with C\({}_{\bar{v}}\) values in the range of 0.2-0.3 were distributed in Hulunbuir, Xing'an League, Chifeng, and Tongliao in northeastern Inner Mongolia. The C\({}_{\bar{v}}\) and NDVI fluctuations were the greatest in the westernmost part of Inner Mongolia, indicating a fragile ecological environment and unstable ecological conditions in the Alxa League. The breakpoints of NDVI in Inner Mongolia in 2000-2019 were mainly distributed in the northwestern region bounded by Ulanqab and northern Hulunbuir, with the highest proportion in 2011-2014. The trend of NDVI in western Inner Mongolia mostly changed from increasing to decreasing before and after the mutation, while the trend of NDVI in the northeastern region gradually stabilized after the mutation. 3. Precipitation, soil type, temperature, and land use type were the main driving factors of NDVI changes in Inner Mongolia, with precipitation being the most influential factor. Therefore, areas with the highest total annual precipitation had the most significant impact on NDVI changes, and the soil and land use types with the largest areas in Inner Mongolia had significant impacts on the NDVI. Nevertheless, the interactions between factors exhibited mostly bi-variable enhancements. Although meteorological, land use type, and topography factors dominantly influenced vegetation growth, their mechanisms of influence showed significant differences. Y.K. : conceptualization, methodology, writing--original draft. E.G. : Conceptualization, Supervision, Inspection. Y.W. : Review, editing. Y.B. ([PERSON]): Investigation, Validation. Y.B. ([PERSON]): Investigation, validation. N.M.: Investigation. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript. The project was supported by the Natural Science Foundation of Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region of China (2020 LH04003), the National Natural Science Foundation of China(41807507), The Key Program of National Natural Science Foundation of China (61631011), High-level introduction of talent research start-up fund in Inner Mongolia Normal University (2018 YJRC008 and 2019 YJRC003).