Some recent land surface models can explicitly represent land surface process and focus more on sub-grid terrestrial features. Many studies have involved the analysis of how hillslope water dynamics determine vegetation patterns and shape ecologically and hydrologically important landscapes, such as desert riparian and waterlogged areas. However, the global locations and abundance of hillslope-dominated landscapes remain unclear. To address this knowledge gap, we propose a globally applicable method that employs high-resolution elevation, hydrography, and land cover data to concisely resolve explicit land cover heterogeneity for the mapping of hillslope-dominated landscapes. First, we aggregate pixels into unit catchments to represent topography-based hydrological units, and then vertically discretize them into height bands to approximate the hillslope profile. The dominant land cover type in each height band is determined, and the uphill land cover transition is analyzed to identify hillslope-dominated landscapes. The results indicate that hillslope-dominated landscapes are distributed extensively worldwide in diverse climate zones. Notably, some landscapes, including gallery forests in northeastern Russia and desert riparian in the Horn of Africa, are newly revealed. Furthermore, the proposed strategy enables more accurate representation of explicit land cover heterogeneity than does the simple downscaling of a rectangular grid from larger to smaller units, revealing its capability to concisely resolve land cover heterogeneity in land surface modeling with relatively high accuracy. Overall, we present the extensive global distribution of landscapes shaped by hillslope water dynamics, underscoring the importance of the explicit resolution of heterogeneity in land surface modeling.

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世界上哪些地方的植被格局受山坡水动力控制？

最近的一些地表模型可以明确地表示地表过程，并且更多地关注亚网格陆地特征。许多研究涉及分析山坡水动态如何决定植被模式并塑造生态和水文重要景观，例如沙漠河岸和淹水地区。然而，以山坡为主的景观的全球位置和丰富程度仍不清楚。为了解决这一知识差距，我们提出了一种全球适用的方法，该方法采用高分辨率高程、水文学和土地覆盖数据来简明地解决显式土地覆盖异质性，以绘制以山坡为主的景观。首先，我们将像素聚合成单位流域来表示基于地形的水文单位，然后将它们垂直离散成高度带以近似山坡剖面。确定每个高度带的主要土地覆盖类型，并分析上坡土地覆盖转变，以确定山坡主导的景观。结果表明，以山坡为主的景观广泛分布在世界各地不同的气候带中。值得注意的是，一些景观，包括俄罗斯东北部的画廊森林和非洲之角的沙漠河岸，都是新近揭晓的。此外，与将矩形网格从较大单元简单缩小到较小单元相比，所提出的策略能够更准确地表示显式土地覆盖异质性，揭示了其以相对较高的精度简洁地解决地表建模中土地覆盖异质性的能力。总体而言，我们呈现了由山坡水动力学塑造的景观的广泛全球分布，强调了地表建模中异质性明确解决的重要性。