In most areas of China, the overall tendency of MLAI's change over 31 years was an increase in general ( Figure 9 ). The regions with obviously rising MLAI are mainly distributed in latitudes from 28° to 32° N, such as the eastern part of Sichuan, the western part of Chongqing and the southern part of Hubei. The areas with apparent decrease are mainly distributed in the area around the Da and Xiao Hinggan Mountains and the Hulunbuir Grasslands, extending southwards along the west of Horqin Sandy Land to Beijing area. In addition, the Yangtze River Delta, Pearl River Delta and other metropolitan regions and Qinghai, Tibet and Sichuan alpine meadow area also show different degrees of decline in vegetation growth.
The common points reflected by ALAI and MLAI are: ( 1 ) regions in latitude from 28° to 32° N have obvious improved vegetation growth conditions, such as eastern part of Sichuan, western part of Chongqing and southern part of Hubei; ( 2 ) Yangtze River Delta and Pearl River Delta city clusters, and areas along Nnamjagbarwa mountain in Tibet and Nujiang River in Yunnan have significant decrease in ALAI and MLAI.
The major differences are: ( 1 ) MLAI indicates the rising area to the south of 25°N ( except Pearl River Delta, Shantou area and the broad area in southern Kunming ), where ALAI shows significant increase; ( 2 ) MLAI indicates the dramatic decreasing regions of eastern Da and Xiao Hinggan Mountains as well as Hulunbeir grassland; whereas ALAI indicates those regions did not show much decrease, which intermittently extends along the western Horqin Sand Land southwards to Beijing area.

The value of LAI in Chinese regions generally presents an increasing trend, particularly in provinces such as Ningxia, Shanxi, Gansu, and Shanxi, which is to the result of implementation of major ecological construction projects over the years in China. The LAI reduction in Shanghai and Jiangsu is mainly caused by the expansion of construction land and other reasons caused by the urbanization.