Understanding shallow soil moisture variation in the data-scarce area and its relationship with climate change by GLDAS data

Quantitatively evaluating the spatiotemporal variation of soil moisture (SM) and its causes can help us to understand regional eco-hydrological processes. However, the complicated geographical environment and the scarce observation data make it difficult to evaluate SM in Northwest China. Selecting the Tarim River Basin (TRB) as a typical representative of the data-scarce area in Northwest China, we conducted an integrated approach to quantitatively assess the spatiotemporal variation of shallow soil moisture (SSM) and its responses to climate change by gathering the earth system data product. Results show that the low-value of SSM distributes in Taklamakan Desert while the high-value basically distributes in the Pamirs and the southern foothill of Tianshan Mountains, where the land types are mostly forest, grassland, and farmland. Annual average SSM of these three land types present a significant increasing trend during the study period. SM at 0–10 cm of all land types are positively correlated to precipitation in spring and autumn, and SM at 0–10 cm in the forest, grassland, and farmland are positively correlated with temperature in winter. SSM presents in-phase relation with precipitation whereas it presents anti-phase relation with temperature, with the significant resonance periods about 6–8 years and 2–3 years which mainly distribute from 1970s to early 1990s and 1960s respectively. The time lags of SSM relative to temperature change are longer than its lags relative to precipitation change, and the lags vary from different land types.