The landscape of the Mongolian Plateau (MP) is shaped by both climatic change and human activities. It is noteworthy to monitor regional vegetation dynamics and to discriminate the impacts of climatic and anthropogenic factors on vegetation productivity and diversity. To investigate human- and climate-driven changes in vegetation cover across the MP during 2000−2014, the residual trend analysis (RESTREND) method was applied to analyze the residuals of potential and actual net primary productivity (NPP) and further identify non-climatic effects on vegetation dynamics. Results suggested that the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) in growing seasons had been increasing at the rate of 0.002/a in the whole MP during 2000–2015. And potential NPP increased across 71% of the study area, revealed that climate change displayed a generally positive effect on vegetation recovery across the plateau; However, the 53% of the total study area exhibited an decreasing residuals trend, indicated that human activity played a negative role in vegetation recovery. Analysis of the combined effects of climate change and human activities indicated that vegetation recovered in 74% but degraded in 22% of area of the MP. Anthropogenic activity could thus be considered as the main influencing factor of vegetation degradation, while climate change was the main controlling factor of vegetation restoration. Besides, Climatic factors had a similar effect on vegetation dynamics in inner and outer Mongolia, but human activities showed a different pattern with a lesser (greater) effect on vegetation degradation (recovery) in inner Mongolia than in outer Mongolia, respectively.

气候变化和人类活动共同塑造了蒙古高原的景观。监测区域植被动态并区分气候和人为因素对植被生产力和多样性的影响是值得注意的。为了调查2000-2014年间人类活动和气候驱动的MP覆盖范围的变化，采用了残留趋势分析（RESTREND）方法来分析潜在和实际净初级生产力（NPP）的残留，并进一步确定非气候对植被动力学的影响。结果表明，在2000–2015年期间，整个生长季中归一化植被指数（NDVI）一直以0.002 / a的速率增加。潜在的NPP在整个研究区域的71％内增加 揭示了气候变化对整个高原的植被恢复普遍表现出积极影响；然而，总研究面积的53％呈现出减少的残留趋势，这表明人类活动对植被恢复起到了消极作用。对气候变化和人类活动的综合影响的分析表明，植被恢复了MP的74％，但退化了MP的22％。因此，人为活动可被视为植被退化的主要影响因素，而气候变化则是植被恢复的主要控制因素。此外，气候因素对内蒙古和外蒙古的植被动态有相似的影响，