Quantitative study of spatiotemporal changes in ecology to monitor land degradation in Alborz Province.

Autor: N. Mostafavi, Gh. Zehtabian, H. Azarnivand, H. Keshtkar, Hassan Khosravi
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2024
Předmět:
Zdroj: Desert, Vol 29, Iss 1, Pp 21-36 (2024)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2008-0875
2345-475X
DOI: 10.22059/jdesert.2024.97915
Popis: The expansion of human activities has caused widespread disturbances in ecosystems worldwide, necessitating the development of effective tools to monitor and quantify these changes. Remote sensing stands as a powerful tool for monitoring and quantifying ecological changes over time and space. In this study, a remote sensing-based ecological index (RSEI) was used to investigate land degradation and desertification in Alborz province during the period 2000-2020. After examining land use changes, the trend of RSEI outputs was evaluated using the Mann-Kendall test and Theil-Sen estimator. The examination of land use changes during the period 2000-2020 showed that barren lands, rangelands, shrublands and forests decreased by 2.30%, 6.25%, 1.53%, and 0.18%, respectively, while crop lands, built-up lands, and dam increased by 8.23%, 1.85%, and 0.18%, respectively. The analysis of the trend of changes in the RSEI using the Mann-Kendall test showed that the changes in 16.27% of Alborz province was decreasing, of which about 0.5% was statistically significant. This decreasing trend was also shown by the Theil-Sen estimator in 13% of this region. The results of this study using the Mann-Kendall test also showed that the RSEI values increased in 80.73% of the study area, of which about 4% increased significantly. The analysis of changes in this index using the Theil-Sen estimator showed that this index increased in 87% of this region. This study suggests that the RSEI approach performs effectively in quantifying and detecting ecological changes and, as a result, land degradation at various scales.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
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