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Evaluation of Selected Vegetation Indices to Assess Rangeland Vegetation in Eastern Libya

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Environmental Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Libya

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Abstract

Observation methods used at ground-based sites are widely used in studies assessing rangeland degradation. However, observations through time are often not integrated nor repeatable, making it difficult for rangeland managers to detect degradation consistently. Vegetation cover in the eastern Libyan rangelands has changed both qualitatively and quantitatively due to natural factors and human activity. This raises concerns about the sustainability of these resources, which play an important role in providing part of the food needs of large numbers of grazing animals, in turn providing food for human consumption. The aim of this research is to evaluate a range of vegetation indices derived from satellite imagery to identity those approaches best applicable for remotely assessing and monitoring vegetation cover in the semi-arid and arid rangelands. This approach was achieved through the utilization of medium resolution satellite imagery to classify vegetation cover. A number of vegetation indices applied in arid and semi-arid rangelands similar to the study area were assessed using ground-based colour vertical photography (GBVP) methods to identify the most appropriate index for classifying percentage vegetation cover. The Modified Soil Adjusted Vegetation Index (MSAVI2) was identified as the most appropriate as this had good correlation with ground data due to the mixture of soil background and vegetation reflectance in low-density vegetation cover areas. Even though the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) remains the most widely-used index, it has limitations as it does not adequately address the influence of the soil background. In arid and semi-arid areas, reducing the soil background noise offers a significant quantitative and qualitative enhancement. These results allow the application of these indices to images from different dates to detect changes in vegetation, allowing monitoring of change in this fragile environment in response to natural and anthropogenic processes.

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Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge the Libyan Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research, for supporting this work. This research was supported by affiliation to the UK Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) (NE/M009009/1). We acknowledge the use of the “Ecosystem Services Databank and Visualisation for Terrestrial Informatics” facility, supported by NERC (NE/L012774/1).

Funding

The research was supported by the Libyan Government through the scholarship programme of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.

Availability of Data and Materials

The vegetation indices presented in this paper derive from open source remote sensing information, specifically Landsat and MODIS from: https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov. A Worldview-2 image was provided by Digital Globe Inc.

Author Contributions

Abdulsalam Al-Bukhari: conceptualization, methodology, supervision, software, data curation, formal analysis, validation, investigation, writing-original draft, visualization, writing—review and editing. Stephen Hallett: supervision, review of analysis, writing—review and editing. Tim Brewer: supervision, review of analysis, writing—review and editing. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Competing Interests

The authors declare that they have no competing interests.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Water, Energy and Environment, Cranfield University, Bedford, UK

    Tim Brewer & Stephen Hallett

  2. Department of Forest and Rangeland, Faculty of Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences, Omar Al-Mukhtar University, Al-Bayda, Libya

    Abdulsalam Al-Bukhari

Authors
  1. Abdulsalam Al-Bukhari
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  2. Tim Brewer
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  3. Stephen Hallett
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Tim Brewer .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Arkansas Agricultural Experiment Station, Arkansas Forest Resources Center, College of Forestry, Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of Arkansas at Monticello, Monticello, AR, USA

    Hamdi A. Zurqani

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Al-Bukhari, A., Brewer, T., Hallett, S. (2022). Evaluation of Selected Vegetation Indices to Assess Rangeland Vegetation in Eastern Libya. In: Zurqani, H.A. (eds) Environmental Applications of Remote Sensing and GIS in Libya. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-97810-5_3

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