Regional desertification: A global synthesis
Author
Summary, in English
The paper presents results on the use of 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 annually integrated and standardized annual NDVI anomalies were generated and compared with a corresponding rainfall data set (1981-2003). The regions studied include the Mediterranean basin, the Sahel from the Atlantic to the Red Sea, major parts of the drylands of Southern Africa, China-Mongolia and the drylands of South America, i.e. important parts of the desertification prone drylands of the world. It is concluded that the suggested methodology is a robust and reliable way to assess and monitor vegetation trends and related desertification on a regional-global scale. A strong general relationship between NDVI and rainfall over time is demonstrated for considerable parts of the drylands. The results of performed trend analysis cannot be used to verify any systematic generic land degradation/desertification trend at the regional-global level. On the contrary. a "greening-up" seems to be evident over large regions. (C) 2008 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Department/s
Publishing year
2008
Language
English
Pages
169-176
Publication/Series
Global and Planetary Change
Volume
64
Issue
3-4
Links
Document type
Journal article
Publisher
Elsevier
Topic
- Physical Geography
Keywords
- global drylands
- remote sensing
- NDVI
- desertification
- land degradation
Status
Published
ISBN/ISSN/Other
- ISSN: 1872-6364