# Impact of Natural and Human Factors on Dryland Vegetation in Eurasia from 2003 to 2022
## 5 Conclusions  
Against the backdrop of rising temperatures, decreasing water supply and increasing human activities, gaining an understanding of the changing characteristics of vegetation activity in the Eurasian drylands and its response to natural and human-driven factors holds significant scientific value. This study comprehensively analyzed the changing characteristics of vegetation greenness, productivity and photosynthetic capacity in the Eurasian drylands over the past two decades and systematically quantified the impact of various natural factors and human activities on vegetation activity. We found that, over the regional scale, between 2003 and 2022, vegetation activity in the Eurasian drylands exhibited an enhancing trend. The growth rates of the normalized vegetation index (NDVI), gross primary productivity (GPP) and solar-induced chlorophyll fluorescence (SIF) in the the Eurasian drylands were 1.00 \(\times\) 10\({}^{-3}\) y\({}^{-1}\) (_p_ \(<\) 0.01), 1.30 g C m\({}^{-2}\) y\({}^{-2}\) (_p_ \(<\) 0.01) and 1.00 \(\times\) 10\({}^{-3}\) W m\({}^{-2}\)um\({}^{-1}\)sr\({}^{-1}\)yr\({}^{-1}\) (_p_ \(<\) 0.01), respectively. At the pixel scale, regions with significantly increased vegetation greenness, productivity and photosynthetic capacity accounted for 29.22%, 36.97% and 41.90% of the Eurasian drylands, respectively. In terms of spatial patterns, the most pronounced enhancements in vegetation activity were observed in South Asia, East Asia, Central Europe and the Mediterranean region. Additionally, we found that the correlation between soil moisture (SM) and vegetation temporal variability in the Eurasian drylands surpassed that of the mean annual temperature (MAT), the mean annual precipitation (MAP), the atmospheric vapor pressure deficit (VPD) and the terrestrial water storage (TWS), highlighting the pivotal role of soil moisture in influencing vegetation temporal variability. Human activities emerged as the predominant driving factors for vegetation greening in the Eurasian drylands, with average relative contributions to NDVI, GPP and SIF of 52.45%, 55.81% and 74.18%, respectively. Our findings enrich the current understanding of the complex vegetation-natural relationships in the Eurasian drylands and emphasize the importance of considering human-induced factors in future research on the driving factors of vegetation activity.  
Conceptualization, J.L. and J.Z.; methodology, Z.H. and L.W.; software, J.L.; validation, J.L., D.M. and S.T.; formal analysis, J.H.; investigation, P.Z. and F.Y.; resources, Z.H.; data curation, N.S.; writing--original draft preparation, J.L.; writing--review and editing, J.Z.; visualization, L.D.; supervision, Z.H.; project administration, J.Z. and C.Y.; Funding Acquisition, J.Z. and C.Y. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.  
This study is jointly funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (42201228) and the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2023 YFB3907403).  
The data used in the present work have been listed in Data Sources.  
We sincerely appreciate the editors and anonymous reviewers for their valuable comments.  
The authors declare no conflicts of interest.