Use of the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) to Assess Land Degradation at Multiple Scales. Current Status, Future Trends, and Practical Considerations ( Back matter)

This report examines the scientific basis for the use of remotely sensed data, particularly the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), for the assessment of land degradation at different scales and for a range of applications, including resilience of agroecosystems. Evidence is drawn from a wide range of investigations, primarily from the scientific peer-reviewed literature but also non-journal sources. The literature review has been corroborated by interviews with leading specialists in the field. The use of continuous time series of global NDVI data, based on the NOAA AVHRR sensor, developed rapidly in the early 1990s. Since then, data processing and techniques for analyses of the data have improved significantly.
The report reviews the use of NDVI for a range of themes related to land degradation. Drought monitoring and early warning systems use NDVI data and have developed fully operational systems for data dissemination and analysis . Desertification processes at the global, continental, and subcontinental scale have been studied intensively in the last two decades; a key finding is that most of the world’s drylands show a trend of increasing NDVI. Global map of land system productive capacity dynamics derived from SPOT
VEGETATION 15-year time series (1999–2013). Appendix A- Inventory of Some Global and Sub-global Remote Sensing-Based Land Degradation Assessments.
Appendix B- Use of Remote Sensing-Derived Land Productive Capacity Dynamics for the New World Atlas of Desertification (WAD).
Appendix C - Developments with GLADA.
Appendix D - China’s Experiences on the Usefulness of GLADA.
Appendix E - Main Features of Image Products from the Different Sensors.
Appendix F - UNCCD Core Indicators for National Reporting: ICCD/COP(11)/CST/2.
Appendix G - Current Cost of Selected Satellite Imagery.
Appendix H - Software for Processing Satellite Images to Develop the NDVI.
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Keywordsnormalized-difference vegetation index (NDVI), land degradation assessment, monitoring and evaluation, monitoring and reporting, agroecosystems, resilience, land degradation mapping