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Long term NOAA-AVHRR GIMMS-NDVI - rainfall relationships and trends 1981 to 2003 for entire DeSurvey area of interest

Author

Summary, in English

The paper presents results of a study on the use of the NOAA AVHRR data for desertification monitoring on a regional-global level. It is based on processing of the GIMMS 8 km global NDVI data set. Time series of annual integrated NDVI and standardized annual NDVI anomalies from the 1981-2003 periodic means were compared with a corresponding rainfall data set (i.e. 1981-2003) as well as a historical rainfall set (1901-2002). Both sets were derived from 2.5 degrees and 0.5 degrees global gridded climate data respectively.



The areas studied include the Mediterranean basin (Southern Europe and Northern Africa), the Sahel from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, major parts of the drylands of Southern Africa, China and the drylands of South America, i.e. important parts of the desertification prone areas of the world (Cf. fig. 1)



It is concluded that the suggested methodology is a robust and reliable way to assess and monitor desertification on a global, national and regional scale. The results of the applied methodology indicate a strong general relationship between NDVI and rainfall over time. The results of performed trend analysis cannot be used to verify any systematic generic land degradation/desertification trend at the regional-global level in any of the regions studied. On the contrary, a “greening-up” seems to be evident over the past 20 years in several of the regions when interpreting the NDVI as a proxy for biomass cover and seasonal vegetation growth.



This is most obvious in the African Sahel region south of the Sahara.

Publishing year

2007

Language

English

Publication/Series

FP6, DeSurvey IP, Sub-deliverable 1.5.1.17 (1), Deliverables data base

Document type

Report

Publisher

DeSurvey IP & Department of Physical Geography and Ecosystems Analysis

Topic

  • Physical Geography

Keywords

  • Remote sensing
  • land degradation
  • global biomass monitoring
  • desertification

Status

Published

Project

  • FP6, DeSurvey IP 2005-2010, A Surveillance System for Assessing and Monitoring Desertification

Report number

FP6, DeSurvey IP, Sub-deliverable 1.5.1.17 (1)

Research group

  • EU FP6 DeSurvey WP 1.5.1: RS & Geomatics-Land condition assessment, Regional trends

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • EU FP6 DeSurvey Project No.: 003950