A new approach for biocrust and vegetation monitoring in drylands using multi-temporal Sentinel-2 images

Cinzia Panigada, Giulia Tagliabue, Eli Zaady, Offer Rozenstein, Roberto Garzonio, Biagio Di Mauro, Mattia De Amicis, Roberto Colombo, Sergio Cogliati, Franco Miglietta, Micol Rossini

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Scopus citations

Abstract

Drylands, one of the planet’s largest terrestrial biomes, are suggested to be greatly threatened by climate change. Drylands are usually sparsely vegetated, and biological soil crusts (biocrusts) – that is, soil surface communities of cyanobacteria, mosses and/or lichens – can cover up to 70% of dryland cover. As they control key ecosystem processes, monitoring their spatial and temporal distribution can provide highly valuable information. In this study, we examine the potential of European Space Agency’s (ESA) Sentinel-2 (S2) data to characterize the spatial and temporal development of biocrust and vascular plant greening along a rainfall gradient of the Negev Desert (Israel). First, the chlorophyll a absorption feature in the red region (CRred) was identified as the index mostly sensitive to changes in biocrust greening but minimally affected by changes in soil moisture. This index was then computed on the S2 images and enabled monitoring the phenological dynamics of different dryland vegetation components from August 2015 to August 2017. The analysis of multi-temporal S2 images allowed us to successfully track the biocrust greening within 15 days from the first seasonal rain events in the north of Negev, and to identify the maximum development of annual vascular plants and greening of perennial ones. These results show potential for monitoring arid and semi-arid environments using the newly available S2 images, allowing new insights into dryland vegetation dynamics.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)496-520
Number of pages25
JournalProgress in Physical Geography
Volume43
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - 1 Aug 2019
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Biological soil crust
  • continuum removal
  • drylands
  • hyperspectral
  • multispectral
  • phenology
  • remote sensing
  • satellite

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Geography, Planning and Development
  • Earth and Planetary Sciences (miscellaneous)
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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