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Spatial–temporal dynamics of NDVI and Chl-a concentration from 1998 to 2009 in the East coastal zone of China: integrating terrestrial and oceanic components

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Abstract

Annual normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and chlorophyll-a (Chl-a) concentration are the most important large-scale indicators of terrestrial and oceanic ecosystem net primary productivity. In this paper, the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor level 3 standard mapped image annual products from 1998 to 2009 are used to study the spatial–temporal characters of terrestrial NDVI and oceanic Chl-a concentration on two sides of the coastline of China by using the methods of mean value (M), coefficient of variation (CV), the slope of unary linear regression model (Slope), and the Hurst index (H). In detail, we researched and analyzed the spatial–temporal dynamics, the longitudinal zonality and latitudinal zonality, the direction, intensity, and persistency of historical changes. The results showed that: (1) spatial patterns of M and CV between NDVI and Chl-a concentration from 1998 to 2009 were very different. The dynamic variation of terrestrial NDVI was much mild, while the variation of oceanic Chl-a concentration was relatively much larger; (2) distinct longitudinal zonality was found for Chl-a concentration and NDVI due to their hypersensitivity to the distance to shoreline, and strong latitudinal zonality existed for Chl-a concentration while terrestrial NDVI had a very weak latitudinal zonality; (3) overall, the NDVI showed a slight decreasing trend while the Chl-a concentration showed a significant increasing trend in the past 12 years, and both of them exhibit strong self-similarity and long-range dependence which indicates opposite future trends between land and ocean.

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Acknowledgments

The authors acknowledge a number of individuals, groups, and organizations for their excellent works on SeaWiFS sensor designing and launching and the NDVI and chlorophyll product processing and sharing. We would like to thank Prof. Ping Shi, Dr. Song Qian, Prof. Dongyan Liu, and Dr. Dejuan Jiang for their pertinent amendments on the manuscript. The research was founded by the Knowledge Innovation Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (kzcx2-yw-224), the CAS Strategic Priority Research Program (XDA05130703). And, the authors gratefully acknowledge the support of K.C. Wong Education Foundation, Hong Kong.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environmental Processes, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (YIC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environmental Processes, YICCAS, Yantai, Shandong, 264003, People’s Republic of China

    Xiyong Hou, Mingjie Li, Meng Gao, Liangju Yu & Xiaoli Bi

  2. Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environmental Processes, Yantai Institute of Coastal Zone Research (YIC), Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS); Shandong Provincial Key Laboratory of Coastal Zone Environmental Processes, YICCAS; Graduate School of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Mingjie Li

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  1. Xiyong Hou
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Correspondence to Xiyong Hou.

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Hou, X., Li, M., Gao, M. et al. Spatial–temporal dynamics of NDVI and Chl-a concentration from 1998 to 2009 in the East coastal zone of China: integrating terrestrial and oceanic components. Environ Monit Assess 185, 267–277 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10661-012-2551-y

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