Efficient large-scale land cover change detection using Google Earth Engine: Climate-driven vegetation dynamics in Asian drylands (2001–2022)

Monitoring land cover dynamics and understanding vegetation responses to climate change are critical for ecological assessment and management in dryland regions. This study systematically analyzes land cover dynamics, vegetation type transitions, and their climatic drivers across Asian drylands from 2001 to 2022 by integrating MODIS land cover data, TerraClimate climate reanalysis datasets, and the Google Earth Engine (GEE) platform. Using a unified framework that combines land cover dynamic indices, transition probability and transfer matrix analyses, and climate attribution, we quantify spatiotemporal change patterns and identify dominant vegetation transition pathways. The results reveal pronounced land cover changes across Asian drylands over the past two decades, characterized by expansions of grasslands (GRA), savannas (SAV), croplands (CRO), and water, snow, and ice (WSI), alongside contractions of shrublands (SH), mixed forests (MF), permanent wetlands (WET), and barren land (BAR). Land cover transition analysis indicates that the most prominent conversion pathways are from barren land to grasslands and from grasslands to croplands, reflecting the combined influences of climate variability and land use processes. Climate attribution analyses further demonstrate that vegetation dynamics across different stability zones exhibit distinct responses to long-term climate trends, with increasing maximum temperature, soil moisture, and vapor-related variables, together with declining precipitation, drought indices, and surface radiation, jointly shaping vegetation persistence, expansion, or degradation. By integrating long-term multi-source datasets and cloud-based geospatial computing, this study provides a scalable and reproducible framework for assessing land cover change and vegetation stability in arid and semi-arid regions. The findings enhance understanding of dryland ecosystem dynamics under climate change and support large-scale ecological assessment in data-scarce environments.