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Use of remote sensing derived land productive capacity dynamics for the new World Atlas of desertification (WAD)

The European Commission‘s Joint Research Centre of the (JRC), together with UNEP and supported by a global network of international research institutions and experts, are developing the new World Atlas of Desertification (WAD) Monitoring and assessing land degradation dynamics involves increasingly most relevant information extracted from time series of satellite observations globally. The dynamics of the earth’s standing vegetation biomass is considered a valid approximation of overall land system productive capacity dynamics and thus also reflecting the underlying ecologic conditions and possible constraints for primary productivity, such as soil fertility, water availability, land use/management etc., and hence related to land degradation. In fact, reduction or loss of land productive capacity, mostly biological and/or economical is one common denominator in the various definitions that are used for land degradation.The currently longest available satellite observation datasets with global coverage at 1km resolution, from e.g the SPOT VGT sensor, have a continuous frequent temporal sampling over a long enough period, 15 years now, that makes it possible to extract proxy information on the phenology and seasonal productivity for each 1km2 area on earth to compile a global land productivity dynamics layer. Even longer continuous time series with more than 30 years continuity are available through the GIMMS NDVI product dating back as far as to 1981, however with the limitation of the spatial resolution to 8x8 km pixels. This resolution may be well suitable for the analysis of broader land- atmosphere interaction but may imply stronger limitations for monitoring and assessing the human-ecosystem interactions primarily through land use at landscape level. These operate and function typically at smaller land units as can be typically depicted at the spatial resolution of GIMMS. Nevertheless, the length of this NDVI time series raises interest to consider also ways to combine it with higher resolution products for enhanced analysis.

land degradation mapping; remote sensing; land productive capacity dynamics; World Atlas of Desertification; WAD

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