In the context of climate drought due to global warming,forest growth is increasingly affected by droughts.How forest growth responds to climate drought how climate drought is mediated by limiting factors are all uncertain.Normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI)and standardized precipitation evapotranspiration index(SPEI)were used to correlate response characteristics of forest growth to climate drought and to analyze mediation of forest coverage on the response.It was found that forest growth in China's forest sites had both positive and negative responses to climate drought.Positive responses were mostly distributed in the southwest of China,in different months and on different time scales.Negative responses were mostly distributed in the southeast coastal areas of China,and were concentrated in winter,spring and in shortterm scale of drought.Further studies found that forest coverage played a regulatory role in the positive responses of forest growth to climate drought.Different levels of forest coverage limited the response of forest growth to climate drought in different ranges.With increasing forest coverage,maximum response of forest growth to climate drought would gradually decrease.This study reveals the role of forest coverage in regulating responses of forest growth to climate drought and helps to provide a certain theoretical reference for forest management.