Abstract
Land cover change is a major challenge for many developing countries. Spatiotemporal information on this change is essential for monitoring global terrestrial ecosystem carbon, climate and biosphere exchange, and land use management. A combination of LST and the EVI indices in the global disturbance index (DI) has been proven to be useful for detecting and monitoring of changes in land covers at continental scales. However, this model has not been adequately applied or assessed in tropical regions. We aimed to demonstrate and evaluate the DI algorithm used to detect spatial change in land covers in Lao tropical forests. We used the land surface temperature and enhanced vegetation index of the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer time-series products from 2006-2012. We used two dates Google EarthTM images in 2006 and 2012 as ground truth data for accuracy assessment of the model. This research demonstrated that the DI was capable of detecting vegetation changes during seven-year periods with high overall accuracy; however, it showed low accuracy in detecting vegetation decrease.
Highlights
Global measures of land cover change are important for global terrestrial ecosystem carbon schemes, climateHow to cite this paper: Phompila, C., Lewis, M., Clarke, K. and Ostendorf, B. (2015) Applying the Global Disturbance Index for Detecting Vegetation Changes in Lao Tropical Forests
We demonstrated and evaluated the global disturbance index, which used a combination of enhanced vegetation index (EVI) and Land Surface Temperature (LST) indices
We used Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) EVI and LST time series data to test whether this approach was useful for detecting land cover change in Lao tropical forests
Summary
Global measures of land cover change are important for global terrestrial ecosystem carbon schemes, climateHow to cite this paper: Phompila, C., Lewis, M., Clarke, K. and Ostendorf, B. (2015) Applying the Global Disturbance Index for Detecting Vegetation Changes in Lao Tropical Forests. (2015) Applying the Global Disturbance Index for Detecting Vegetation Changes in Lao Tropical Forests. Biodiversity loss due to land cover change is one of the core management challenges at both global and regional scale [8] [9]. Obtaining accurate spatiotemporal information of the timing and location of land cover change is especially challenging under logistically constrained conditions such as tropical forests in developing countries. A remote sensing approach is essential and such an application has provided key information for the comprehension of ecological system dynamics. Remote sensing has been used to predict and map forest structure and density in southeastern Madagascar [15], and to examine the relationship between Mexican tropical vegetation and rainfall [16]. A number of change detection algorithms for use with satellite imagery have been tested and applied [5]
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