Desertification Monitoring by Using Remote Sensing Technology

By: Pavankumar H K 1RV09ME072 VIII-B, Department of Mechanical Engineering

Introduction
Desertification:
Desertification is a type of land degradation in which a relatively dry land region becomes increasingly arid, typically losing its bodies of water as well as vegetation and wildlife. It is caused by a variety of factors, such as climate change and human activities. Desertification is a significant global ecological and environmental problem. Princeton University Dictionary defines it as "the process of fertile land transforming into desert typically as a result of deforestation, drought or improper/inappropriate agriculture." Desertification phenomena started spreading worldwide at high speed since the second half of the last century. United Nations reports indicate that about 35 million square kilometers of land are subject to desertification effects. This is accompanied with a loss of about 26 billion American dollars of agricultural production.

 Desertification has played a significant role in human history, contributing to the collapse of several large empires, such as Carthage, Greece, and the Roman Empire, as well as causing displacement of local populations. 14.9 billion hectares of the Earth's surface is land. A United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP) publication indicates that an area of 6.1 billion hectares of the Earth's surface are dry land of which 1 billion hectares are merely hyper-arid desert, while the remaining 5.1 billion hectares are subject to desertification process and are expected to become desert in the future. The Sahara is currently expanding south at a rate of up to 48 kilometers per year.

Factors leading to desertification

Climatic variability It is known that dry lands have limited water supplies (annual rainfall is less than 100mm). Rainfall can vary greatly during the year, while wider fluctuations occur over years and decades. This leads directly to drought, which is often associated with land degradation and hence a vital factor behind desertification.

Human activities
At this point we may pay attention to the fact that all definitions of the term desertification agreed upon the human activities as the cause of desertification. The human activities that lead to desertification can be outlined as follows: Overgrazing: This is described as the major cause of desertification worldwide.

Factors leading to desertification

Overexploiting land: This can happen due to various reasons. It can happen due to expand in human population and hence the need for more crops, international economic forces that can lead to short-term exploitation of local resources for export. Deforestation: Destruction of vegetation in arid regions, mainly for fuelwood. Poor Irrigation Practices: This would lead to soil salinity that can prevent plant growth. Natural and man-made Disasters: Natural disasters such as floods and droughts, and man-made disasters such as wars and national emergencies can destroy productive land by causing heavy concentration of migrants to overburden an area.

Consequences of desertification`
Desertification causes reduction in the ability of land to support life. It affects wild species, domestic animals, agricultural crops and people. The reduction in plant cover that accompanies desertification leads to soil erosion. Desertification leads to movements of people, and hence conflicts. Dar Fur region in western Sudan is a typical example for conflicts and crisis that took place because of movements of people from north (drought part of the region) to south (where there is cultivation and pastures). The growth domestic product of the areas affected by desertification is largely affected. At the global level it is estimated that the annual income of areas immediately affected by desertification is decreased by 42 billion American dollars. The indirect income and social costs suffered outside the affected areas, including the influx of "environmental refugees" and losses to national food production, may be much greater.

Monitoring desertification
Because of the serious consequences of desertification there becomes a high need to combat desertification. The first step is to monitor desertification through measuring land degradation and desertification processes. Standard methods of undertaking such measurements are substantially imperfect and economically non feasible. These conventional methods has traditionally been short of standardization because of the range of criteria and indicators. The various data sources available through remote sensing offer the possibility of gaining environmental data over both large areas and relatively long time-periods. It has been demonstrated that satellite-based and airborne remote sensing systems offer a considerable potential in assessing and monitoring desertification around the world.

Remote sensing for monitoring desertification

Remote sensing is a technique used to collect data about the earth without taking a physical sample of the earth's surface. A sensor is used to measure the energy reflected from the earth. During the last three decades satellites have been providing scientists with huge information about the Earth. Landsat images of the same area, taken several years apart but during the same point in the growing season may indicate changes in the susceptibility of land to desertification. This in fact is the direct approach for measuring and monitoring desertification. Researchers in this field, however, have developed indirect means for monitoring desertification making use of remote sensing technology.

Remote sensing for monitoring desertification

These indirect means are called indicators for desertification monitoring. Some of these indicators that can be determined through remote sensing techniques are summarized below: Livestock size: the larger number of cattle means high grazing and hence indicates a cause of desertification. Population pressure: the larger number of population indicates need for more food and water leading to severe degradation of vegetation, soil and water resources. Deforestation Type of building material: houses constructed of wood indicates deforestation that causes desertification. Number and distribution of water wells. Migration of livestock. Declining ground water level. Bush encroachment and species change. Normalized Difference Vegetation Index.

implementation
West Asia: Study was done on desertification processes, causes and indicators occurring in West Asia, then desertification mapping, assessment and monitoring using remote sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) techniques. The study area was about 66 millions hectares, of which 32% is sand or sand dune land which has been excluded from desertification assessment and 30% is desert or desert rangeland. Two main indicators were used for vegetation degradation study: decrease of forage productivity and decrease in the vegetation cover. The decrease of forage was linked to two variables: the intensity of livestock and normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI). The authors used the following multiple regression model to calculate the first indicator image of vegetation degradation: F = 68.45 + 1.744*L 333.46*NDVI Where, F = decrease of forage in percentage L = increase of livestock intensity NDVI = normalized difference vegetation index

implementation
The percentage of vegetation cover (VC%) was determined using the model which relates the vegetation cover to NDVI as follows:
VC% = - 4.337 3.733*NDVI + 161.968*NDVI2

The vegetation cover percentage was determined for two periods 1980's and 1990's. The decrease in vegetation cover percent image was determined from the difference of the two periods. The output images of decrease of forage productivity and decrease of vegetation cover percent were then combined to produce by overlapping the vegetation degradation image The study concluded that 31.3% of the west Asia is subject to severe vegetation degradation, 19.2% is subject to moderate vegetation degradation, 8.8% and 8.5% are subject to slight and very severe vegetation degradation, respectively.

implementation
China:
Study area is located in the lower segment of Heihe River middle reaches, south of the Badain Jaran Desert, north china. It belongs to the temperate continental climate with an average annual precipitation is 110.4 mm, annual evaporation is 1923.4 mm, and the annual average temperature of 7.80 -80. The surface soil layer is dry, and the aridity reaches 5.5. The selected research area is near the central of Gaotai County, where a typical desertification process with complete types is undergoing.

Where, Albedo: ratio between the amount of light a body reflects or scatters and the amount of light that is absorbed. NDVI = normalized difference vegetation index

implementation

above result obtained from remote sensing satellite shows the severity of desertification in gaotai county present to the south of Gobi desert. That is it implies desert is expanding southwards into china.

implementation
Egypt Egypt lies in the semi arid and arid zone of Africa. Desertification can often be found in detached areas in arid and semi arid places (Pacheco, 1980). The use of remote sensing in monitoring and identification of the desertification phenomena has been investigated.

Two TM images covering the eastern boundaries of the river Nile delta towards the Suez Canal (covering about 18000 hectares), taken during the summer season (July 2, 1984 and August 9, 1989) were digitally processed. The results obtained showed that unplanted areas were 33.9% in the year 1984 and 47.3% in 1989. This means that the rate of desertification in this part of the country was 2.68% per year.

implementation
India the national-level classification system evolved, methodology for preparation of desertification Status Mapping and details of the DSM prepared for the entire country. DSM on 1 : 500,000 scale was carried out using multi date data from Advanced Wide Field Sensor (AWiFS) onboard IRS P6-Resourcesat acquired during 2003, 2004 and 2005. Ground truth data was also collected and used in preparation of DSM. IRS-P6 (Resourcesat) AWiFS geo-coded False Color Composite (FCC) data were analyzed using visual interpretation techniques to generate DSM on 1 : 500,000 scale. Base features like road, rail, habitation and drainage were taken from satellite imagery whereas forest boundaries were taken from topographical maps for preparing base maps. Ground truth data collected from various places spread throughout the country were used to finalize the maps. The final DSM mylars were vectorized and put on a national spatial frame work. The seams were removed between adjacent map sheets to prepare seamless map for states and finally for the country.

AWiFS image showing the water erosion/mass-wasting, etc. in cold desert area of Nubra Valley (J&K).

Water erosion, frost-shattering, mass-wasting, etc. in cold desert as seen in the field (Leh, J&K).

The boundaries of arid, semi-arid and dry sub humid regions of the country were superimposed on the DSM of India to find out the area under desertification. In India, the total area under desertification is 81.45 mha. Water erosion (26.21 mha), wind erosion (17.77 mha), vegetal degradation (17.63 mha) and frost shattering (9.47 mha) are the major processes of desertification. Nearly one third of the countrys land area (32.07%) is undergoing processes of land degradation.

Desertification/land degradation status map of India.

References: [1]. Abd El-Hamid, M.I.E., 1994. "Remote Sensing and the Desertification Phenomenon". Proceedings of the Symposium on Desert Studies in The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, Riyadh, 2-4 October 1994, Vol. 3, pp. 437-459. [2]. Zongyi Ma, et al., 2011. The Construction and Application of an AledoNDVI Based Desertification Monitoring Model. 3rd International Conference on Environmental Science and Information Application Technology (ESIAT 2011). [3]. Ajai et al., Desertification/land degradation status mapping of India. research communications, 2009.

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